"Can't
get sunburned, eh? Why is that? Just
curious...and if I may add to the question (since I think the answers
are somewhat related) -- just how does light work in Tryslmaistan,
anyway? What is it "made" of? I recall no mention of an
electromagnetic force as we know it on Earth, so I'd guess light
can't be electromagnetic waves like it is on Earth. Are there trinal
paravective waves, maybe?" -Tursiops0

Radiation
works differently in the Tryslmaistan Universe than in our own
Mundis Universe, but ultimately serves many, but not all, of the same
basic functions.

In
our universe, such radiation as light, in all of its forms, such as
visible light, x-rays, radio waves, and so forth, are all made of
various frequencies of one thing: photons.

A
photon is a most curious creature. Photons are energy, and they have
a transcendent nature in that they are both particles, and
waves...or, if you prefer, both and neither. They are something
outside the common imagination: they are 'wavicles'.

Depending
on how light is measured, it can act like a particle, like a bullet
or a tiny lump or grain, OR the very same light can act as a -wave-
in the fabric of spacetime...entirely the opposite thing from a
particle. A wave of light can pass through two (or more) holes in a
screen -at the same instant in time- just like a wave on the ocean
can pass through the posts of a pier...because a wave is an effect
upon something else...the water. But a particle is a discreet thing,
and photons can pile up like boulders (in effect). How can something
real be a thing, like a grain of sand, and at the same time also NOT
be a thing, but be an effect, such as a wave, passing though a
medium, such as water? Only if it is both and neither, indeed,
something right outside of our common labels and definitions.

Essentially,
a photon is a hyperdimensional fold of spacetime, void curled in on
itself, a living variable in the equation of existence. Photons is
weird stuff.

Tryslmaistan
has no photons, rather it has lumons. Lumons are not particles, nor
are they waves...they are lines and angles. The photon exists as two
contradictory things at the same instant, because it operates under
the rules of the quantum realm, and thus seems paradoxic. The lumon
is also paradoxic, being that it is an infinitely straight line, and
-also- an angle with -no- lines running out from it. The lumon is
also infinitely long, and because of this, there
are no 'speed of light' issues
in the Tryslmaistan
universe...sight is
instantaneous.
The frequency of the photon is created by its wavelength, when it is
measured as a wave, but the frequency of the lumon is created by the
degree of the angle, when it is NOT measured as a line.

Because
photons can act like particles, they can smash through things, like
tiny bullets, and cause damage. That is what a sunburn is. Cells
damaged by tiny bullets of light ripping though them and wrecking
things. That is why sunburns can develop into cancer...one of the
things inside a cell that can get ripped up is the DNA, which is the
control program for cellular machinery.

Lumons
cannot act like 'bullets', and cannot punch though tratonic matter,
the matter that makes up everything -including the converted humans-
in the Tryslmaistan universe. Thus, no sunburn.

So,
you might ask, how can lumon radiation pass though crystal, or the
lens of an eye then? Shouldn't everyone be blind as a consequence?

To
understand that, you need to understand that light, photonic light
as in our universe, does not actually ever 'pass' though our eye
lenses or through glass! That is an illusion.

In
reality, photonic light is absorbed by the outer surface of glass,
or your eye, and the potential energy kicks atom after atom after
atom in a line, until -on the opposite side of the glass- an equal
photon to the one that hit the surface is released. It isn't the same
photon that hit the glass, it is another photon with the same energy,
wavelength, and direction. When you see, whether through a window, or
through the lens in your own eye, you are seeing a copy of the light
that hit the window or your lens, not the orignal light at all. Seriously.

When
lumonic light hits a tratonic window, or lens, in Tryslmaistan, it
induces a planar inversion of the traton it hits. This planar
inversion is passed from traton to traton, until on the opposite
side, the potential energy is released as another equal lumon. Just
like how photons work, in effect, but using a different methodology
to achieve the same net result.

One
of the first lessons Creatrixes and Creators learn, when beginning
the study of the construction and design of universes, is that
parallels of function are commonplace, yet the methods used to
implement these functions are infinite (Aleph 0, not any multiple
infinity, just standard infinity). There always has to be a system
for distant perception, and ultimately, however it works, it pretty
much ends up serving the function of something not entirely unlike light.

"Do
absorbed lumons still create heat? As in, can I still take a lens
and a piece of paper and focus enough lumons to a point on the paper
to make a fire?" -Rossperk

Yes,
the absorption of lumons does increase the local entropy, albeit at
a reduced level than in our universe. However, the frequencies
produiced by the sun and moon orbs associated with every worldplate
are very visible-light range, and thus, lacking the equivalent of
infra-red, or a powerful output, are like so-called 'cold light' -the
kind of light that comes from charged tubes, or bioluminescence. The
heat transfet is very, very tiny. However, it is the cumulative
effect of this tiny amount that makes the entire Tryslmaistan cosmos
have a pleasant ambient temperature.

Now,
you are prolly thinking at this point, fine....tiny amount of heat
from those orbs, but it is a closed universe, a closed system, why
are they not broiling in a cumulative hellish inferno of heat that
cannot go anywhere. Not to mention the energy released by Shatterel
cycles, movement, biology, and everything else that can happen or occur?

The
answer, is in the Veils....a VERY large-scale phenomena that
seperate entire worldplate -clusters- from each other. The Veils,
which are listed in the Powers-Of-Ten Cosmic Zoom map section, act as
heat sinks due to some rather unique energy transformation dynamics.
Ambient heat is taken by the Veils and converted to high frequency
Tryslmeric Charge, also
called 'Electanic Charge',
the potential of which powers the light production of the orbs. As
the orbs circle the worldplates, they broadcast light, a very
miniscule bit of heat, and low frequency Tryslmeric. or 'Electanic'
Charge, which builds up in the Worldplates. The Worldplates act like
gargantuan crystal capacitors, and when they reach critical mass,
they discharge, creating Shatterel. The Shatterel gradually
dissipates into the atmospheric void, as heat, which eventually
reaches the Veils. A balanced, perpetual cycle with no beginning, a
perpetual motion machine, a closed energy loop. It never varies, and
never changes, and is regular as clock-work.

Always,
as the Jellies state. Always.

"So,
is the Tryslmeric Charge capacitated in the plate itself, and
discharged into the air around the plate at the breaking point?"

Yes...the
discharge into the air is what causes the Shatterel to form, three
times a 'year'.

"Wait,
let me get this straight: The orbs create low freq. T-charge, which
the plates absorb and eventually convert to heat (via Shatterel),
which is absorbed by the Veils that convert it to high freq.
T-charge, which is absorbed by the orbs that convert it to low freq.
T-charge again (and light, which gets back into the cycle as heat
later on). (Sounds like a Dr. Alchemist strip! ^_^ )"

Correct.

"About
the Veils, looking at the 10^7 Tetra map, is it the phenomena that
creates the Voids (like the Kaltis, Yumu, and Semtis Voids), or is it
what seperates them into little groups of 3s? Or both?"

The
Celestial Veils are wispy, curtain-like phenomena, rather like
unbelievably gargantuan draperies made of cotton-candy energy/mist.
They are organized in a fractal manner, so that smaller and smaller
sheets 'decend' from the Great Curtains until these dinky ones
ultimately invade the regions near small (3) groups of Worldplates
sit. The Great Veils are like walls, dividing the Voids, as you
suggest, and were a deadly nightmare to the original colonists from
Myrmil. A lot of the ark-ships did not make it through more than a
few Veil crossings.

"Then
the various skin pigmentations are because the
people's ancestors where from a planet that had mundis light? Because
light rays aren't harmeful, why would different skin pigmentations
evolve?" -Kaleidors

Exactly
correct, Becky! One of the original groups that ended up in the
Tryslmaistan Universe included a divot from what was once/will be/is
now called Nigeria, in Africa. Nigerians have the most incredibly,
lovely, absolutely black...almost blue-black...pigmentation. It is
remarkably dark. Yet, in all of Unicorn Jelly, we see no strongly
dark-skinned people. Chou is pretty dark skinned for Gryrnu, and she
is a very light brown. Millian has a bit of pigment, and a trace of
kinky (oval crossection) hair can be found in Zuzux. These are the
last reminants of the Nigerian group, diluted and mixed with the
genetics of the other groups from earth, over a very, very long time.
Because radiation, at least in the usual 'punch a hole through
matter' concept is not a part of Tryslmaistan physics, skin
pigmentation serves no purpose...but neither is there a powerful
engine for evolution either! Thus there is no evolutionary pressure
to eliminate dark skin, either, other than it costs a few extra
calories. As you can see, despite the limited selection, the Gryrnese
are not starving. Anymore, anyway.

So
that is why everyone in Unicorn Jelly appears to have such a mixed
genetic background, why there are not deeply dark skin colors, and
why the reminants of dark skin have not faded from evolutionary
pressure (there isn't any!...well not much...).

Gryrnu
is the ultimate 'melting pot' for peoples and cultures from earth.
Because they only had each other, there was not room or patience for
forming ghettos, for isolation, for fussing over which sneech had a
star on it's belly. The were lucky to survive and thrive at all.

"Why
is the sky blue?" -Rossperk

I
love this question. It is oft presented as the quintessential
childhood question. Here is the answer:

The
Tyndall Effect. In 1859, John Tyndall figured out that light passing
though a particulate medium...say water with dust in it...would
scatter light. The scattering would be such that red (low frequency)
light would be more affected than blue light (high frequency). Air is
basically just a very low density water, if you think about how both
act, what they are made of, and how they flow.

Now
for years the idea was that blue sky was caused by dust in the air,
or water vapor particles...but calculations by none other than
Einstein himself proved that the very particles of air
alone...molecules of oxygen, atoms of nitrogen, molecules of carbon
dioxide.... were sufficient to create a full-blown (pun intended)
Tyndall Effect, regardless of any dust and water vapor. Atoms are
particles too!

Now
there -was- a bit of fuss over why the sky is not violet, which is
and even higher frequency than blue, instead of just blue...and that
is answered by three things. One is that human eyes are less
sensitive to violet than to blue. The other is that the atmosphere
absorbs quite a lot of violet light, and thus less gets through (the
sun puts out white light, which just means that it puts out all the
colors at the same time) you can chalk that up to the nature of the
gasses themselves. The last factor is that the sun, while it does put
out all colors of light, does not do so equally...it just does not
pump out -quite- as much violet as it does blue in the mix of light
it produces. G-type stars (like our sun) produce unique light
balances due to what trace atoms they contain, beyond the usual
hydrogen and helium.

So,
why is the sky blue in the Tryslmaistan universe? Because the
Tyndall effect still applies there too! Tryslmaistan has some odd
physics, yes, but not all the physics of the Tryslmaistan universe
are unique...most of the physics there are identical -or very close-
to the physics of Mundus, our own universe.

However,
you might notice that in all of the color pictures I have done, the
blue color is not quite the same as that of our earth. For one thing,
sunsets (or orbsets if you prefer) do not get all reddish, rather
they tend more towards being teal or blue-green, with touches of
violet. Further, the blue of the Tryslmaistan universe sky is more
teal than that of earth overall, and as it darkens, becomes more
deeply blue...kind of a Prussian Blue. There are also more definite
traces of violet, especially off of reflected light, such as from the
crystal plants in the deserts. You will see this violet hue in many
of the color pictures if you look. These subtle touches relfect the
unique character of the Tryslmaistan universe.

Indeed,
as the day progresses on Gryrnu, the sky will shift as the sun
crosses the Worldplate from a greenish teal in the morning, to a pale
teal-blue at midday, to a strong teal and violet at orbset, and deep
intense blue, never pitch black, at night. For a tour of this, go
re-read the Great Manly
Monster Slaying Expedition which shows the passing of one full
day, from morning to evening, in color. This is the sequence where
Yasui lost the use of his arm, by the way. Pay attention to the
light, the sky color, and the way the light reflects and refracts off
of objects. I am proud of that Alt Universe sequence.

Side
note...yes, that is an example of an Alternate Universe event that
ALSO happened in a very similar fashion in the Prime Universe story,
albeit in the background because it was not important to the main
plotline. Some Alt Universe stories are relfections of similar events
that happen in the background of the Prime Universe. Others are
utterly different from the Prime Universe. That is the nature of
Alternate Universes. Back to the topic...

The
Jellies actually see the sky of their universe as far more violet,
almost pinkish, but humans see it as these teal and blue colors,
because they have eyes that evolved on earth, and thus are limited by
that evolution.

If
you look carefully, you will see that I have been most careful in
representing these details!

So
now you know...not only for earth, but for Gryrnu as well.

I
love answering these sorts of questions...its fun! ^.^

"Random
question: did you have all of the unique
physics, culture, history, etc. of Tryslmaistan figured out in
advance from the very beginning, or did the Muse not bring all that
up until the strip was already rolling? Similarly, has the Muse been
calling the shots from the very first strip, or were you working
alone at first?" -Bigearlx

My
curious partner, my Muse, bent my head to the task from the start.

I
did not want to do Unicorn Jelly, and I all I knew was my sorrow and
anger over the loss of my game project. I was miserable beyond
comprehension. Then, one day, I had a kick in the pants feeling, and
it nagged at me. I started sketching on napkins, and needed to start
carrying a drawing book in my purse. I started making the first
character designs for what would one day become all of the cast of
Unicorn Jelly. Each character just popped out, and the pressure to
have to act upon them built. At this time I started noticing that
there were online comics out there.

I
had no idea what the farg I was doing with the first Unicorn Jelly
strip. At first I figured that the whole thing would be just a D&D
fantasy romp. I thought it would be silly video-RPG stories about a
goofy witch and her little pet. I had no idea that the guards
protecting her would become so important...I named them as
'disposable' characters after all (Redcloak -'redshirt'- and
FODDERman!)...I was expecting to have them constantly being killed
off and suddenly back, like Kenny from South Park.

Then
Chou showed up. And the Shatterel storm. Suddenly the complexities
of the Powers of Ten map began to take on an eerie consistancy, and
meaning. As time has progressed, more has been revealed, to me as
well, and so I fel this wonderful sense of discovery of something
that seems so 'already made'...as though I were just tapping into
something neater than I could think up. I really like that feeling. I
have come to like not knowing what the next panel will be until it is
finished and I get to read it. The one time a whole set of strips was
just shoved at me in my mind, all finished, it was boring to actually
draw them...just work. The Way the Muse usually does things, I have
this mix of terror and awe and wonder as I draw the strip....I
haven't a clue what is going on, but I just try to trust that it will
not only work, but make sense, include foreshadowing of future
events, and create a complex, multilayered story that will 'learn me
somptin' if only silly me can figure it out.

So
far, it has worked, like magick if you will excuse the term, for two
years. I cannot explain it, so I try not to...it is too neato to ask
too many questions, you know? I have turned from begrudging the work
to looking forward to it, knowing that it alone saved me from an
almost suicidal despair. I suppose there is one obvious magick in
Unicorn Jelly after all..the fact that it gets made at all. I am
reading it along with you, as it goes. I do get more hints and clues,
true, but I am always being surprized.

"How
do Jellies talk?"-Bigearlx

Normally,
before humans, they used the entire surface of their body to
generate -and recieve- sound. They were like living monophonic
speakers, vibrating.

The
Jellies we have seen have all been affected by the human occupation,
and conquest of Gryrnu. They are the last on 'The Rez' of their
tribe, and have adopted many of the Humans mannerisms and ways. They
form mouths and move them in time to their vibration-speech. They use
Talcryl commonly, instead of Jellese. Many had forgotten their native
language entirely, in fact. Unlike most Amerindian tribes on Earth,
though, the Jellies did not lose their original religion, and kept
it, as you saw with KayWai.

Jellies
do not need the mouths they form...they do it because they are
trying to appease a very rational terror of the Humans that came and
slaughtered them for land and resources. Since Jellies are not keen
on change, they fall into patterns and hold them once formed.

"I
would assume that they are evolved from the
crystal life within the universe, essentially they are made of the
same stuff as that within the crystals, except seem to have developed
a reasonably thick outer coating to prevent themselves from spilling everywhere.There
has been no suggestion within the strip as to whether or not Crystal
life contains any organs at all, at least that we could
recognise." -Lordroberts

First
up, it is a strange thing to contemplate what is meant by a true,
'steady-state', universe, which is the sort of universe that Unicorn Jelly
takes place in.
Tryslmaistan had no 'big bang', no origin point, no defined start.
It is/as always/was. There is no natural evolution (in the way we
know the term) in the Tryslmaistan universe. The advent of humans,
however, has set everything on it's collective ear. Vlax acts to
mutate earth life, and thus is an engine for the evolution of
Red/Green life, if an odd one. And, as we have seen with KayWai and
Uni, some Red/Green life can mutate crystal or White life. This has
never happened before, and is unnatural to the entire universe of Tryslmaistan.

Although
Tryslmaistan has no evolution, because there is no engine to drive
evolution there, it does have a kind of atemporal structural
progression in the sum construct of its cosmology. This can be seen
in that all White life is based on a common plan, and all versions of
it are extentions of that structure. The basic layout of crystal life
is a denser shell covering a lighter, fluidic center.

If
you remember the Great
Manly Monster Slaying Expedition, when the Teal Scizzortiger was
burst open, it was seen to be a hollow shell, filled with a creamy
transluscent goo. This goo is what one would find inside everything
from a Crystal Basilisk to a Scut-Scut on the beach...and of course,
Uni. KayWai, being heavily contaminated from a diet heavy in Deifica,
as well as a unique mutation, is filled with a greenish-blue jell,
mush less opaque.

The
goo does not have discrete organs as we know them. There is no
permanent 'liver' or 'spleen' or 'heart'. As organs are needed, they
form, constructed on the fly by the replicator units within the goo.
When the organs are not in need, they are taken apart, so that other
organs can be built. This would be ridiculously inefficient in our
high entropy Mundis universe, where energy and life are so limited.
In the Tryslmaistan universe, however, this system makes a sttrange
sort of sense.

Now
the more complex the crystal entity, the more likely that it will
contain 'replicator nodes' mixed into the goo. While not precisely
organs, they are pre-constructed universal mega-components that can
be used to speed up the construction of any number of temporary
organs formations. Universal chunks of commonly used code, for the
programmers out there. Ther Slimes do not have any of these, the
large crystal beasties have some, and the Jellies have a lot of them.
Thus, Jellies can be killed by slicing them in half, because the goo
spills out and the replicators inside cannot make use of the nodes
they depend on and fail. Slimes can survive any amount of whacking
because they are just a big puddle of replicators, no nodes, and thus
can just rebuild missing mass...as we saw with Uni. However, being
more simple, they are not capable of being as intelligent, because,
in effect, they cannot process information as well.

Which
brings us to how these creatures think. They do not have a discreet
brain, rather they disrtibute their thought-like functions over the
whole of their substance, with connections and processing systems
being created and dissolved constantly. The non-stop nature of this
allows memory to exist, as memory is always being copied from one
transient structure to the next. In effect, they have a volatile
memory...if one was ever interruped somehow in mid-process, it would
likely lose its memory!

So,
transient organs, goo inside a 'shell' or 'skin', and no evolution
but an obvious structural 'progression' instead...at least until the
Humans showed up...and changed everything.

"I
got the impression, and you'll forgive the imagry, that
the numerous crystals were basically maggots devouring Chou's body so
they could become more Basilisks. Uni apparently has the ability to
heal, but a natural ability wouldn't really differentiate. I think
Uni healed the crystals and Chou at the same time, resulting in a
bonding, the creation of a new life form that was at once human (elf)
and basilisk. A hybrid." -Crowfrog

Crowfrog
is basically bang on. The Crystal Basilisk reproduces rather like
some Earthly wasps...who lay their eggs inside the living body of a
spider they have paralyzed, to provide -fresh- food for hatching larva.

In
the case of the Basilisk, the 'egg' is a soulution of crystal
replicators...kind of like natural nanobots...that make use of the
available, concentrated minerals and salts to manufacture a new, baby
Basilisk. Rather than being like a bunch of maggots swarming, it is
more like a single unified web, or net, of crystalline fibers and
nodes growing throughout the host body. Normally the host would be a
native crystal life form...like the crystal 'crabs', or other such
creatures, all possessed of a hard shell and a liquid-crystal interior.

A
human body is even wetter and softer and has a decent concentration
of minerals in the bones...no wonder little Amalthea
Yaru...eventually 'Chou'...was implanted. Pretty tempting to a Basilisk.

Uni's
'serum' managed to arrest the growth and spread of the basilisk
fetus, and stablized Chou's own metabolism. A state of balance was
achieved, where the two life forms, human and basilisk embryo, could
exist together, equally. Since the basilisk life is alien, human
antibodies and immune response is useless to eliminate it, and vice
versa. The two are now a hybrid, and neither could survive if the
other was removed...there is not enough of the original Amalthea left
to keep her organs running if the basilisk was removed, and there is
not enough basilisk developed to survive without the human support.

Chou
is now a unique creature, alone in all the multiverses, alone in all
of her own time and space. She belongs to a new species with a
population of exactly one. Since she is sterile, she cannot
reproduce, so she is all there will ever be of her life form. On the
positive side, she can probably expect to live as long as her
basilisk half...upwards of 300-400 years. Or more, because her own
biological family is pretty long lived too. She will be alive for
centuries after Lupiko is composted.

(In
Response to a
long discussion concerning the Gryrnese
3-sided pentacle (!), the uses of magick sysmbols in general, and the
origins of their use...)

All
About Pentacles, Tryslmaistan Or Earthly.

Lots
of talk about this topic, so I decided to put in my own words. It's
kind of something I have studied a bit, so...

Pythagoras
and his bad boy posse basically had their own custom religion going,
because do-it-yourself cults were really big among the Greek
philosophy otaku. For these folks, geometry was pretty exciting
stuff, and they found in the study such beauty that it inspired
religious feelings in them. So, to make the whole of one of the most
vital elements of western culture into a pop-culture factoid, these
Greek boys made a pile of dice and sat around telling fortunes with
them. Those dice were later made REALLY popular by a certain pundit
named Plato about 80 years later, and that is how the 'Platonian
Solids' (instead of Pythagorean solids) eventually became the dice we
use in Dungeons and Dragons.

Now
Pythagoras and his buds also liked playing with flat geometry too,
and they especially liked relating the dice they loved with flat
shapes. Their fave-rave 3-D shape was the Dodecahedron..the 12-sided
die. To them, it somehow symbolized the cosmos, the Ultimate, and
what we might translate as god, more or less. Now a D12 is made up of
12 perfect pentagons...five sided polygons. 12 was a bigtime magic
number (12 months in a year, comes from all of this) and the fact
that the shape that meant 'god' was made of pentagon suggested that
five was a big deal too. After all, humans -we ultimate life form
types- have five toes and five fingers and stuff, so here was this
uber-cool connection between god and man and cool crap like that.

So,
lots of folks had lots of fun over the centuries playing around with
the symbol for Mankind, the pentagon. They played with drawing lines
between the points and ended up making a star shape...or rather we
draw stars that way because it was all such a big cool idea at the
time. That was the pentagram. They took the star and drew a circle
around it and that looked REALLY cool...thus the pentacle got super famous.

Now
there were these cats out in the desert, recently escaped from
slavery under Egyptian rule, and they were into all kinds of mystical
stuff. However, these Hebrew folks wanted their own magick, rather
than all that crazy Egyptian stuff, so the created a whole form of
magery called the 'Kabbalah'. Lots of magick playtime later, we have
every kind of star, including the well known 'Star Of David', the hexagram.

Now
some of these Jewish tribes, always on the run, went all over the
place, and influenced everyone and everything as they went. With
their culture came also their Magick, and this affected medieval
Europe in a big way. Soon everyone from gypsies to the members of the
royal court were playing with the stuff, and because the crusades
caused Europeans to check out books from Islamic libraries, the
western world got all the original Pythagoras stuff back too. How did
the world lose all of the Greek stuff you may ask? You see, there as
this little cult called Christianity, back near the end of Rome, and
it got a little certain that it had the One And Only Truth. In order
to celebrate this Fact, they threw a little party, and asked the
proto-German Huns (who were real big on Christianity) to come over
and help them celebrate being so very damn correct. Well, My
ancestors being what they are, things got a little out of hand, and
they basically burned down the single biggest library in the whole
world, and also any others that they could get to, on the grounds
that there was stuff inside that did not agree 100% with their
Super-True Christian Beliefs. Oopsie! The Dark Ages, the loss of all
knowledge, eating bugs and living like animals for a few hundred
years, a real big setback for the west.

Anyway,
the point is they all got it back, mostly, when the Crusades went
borrowing books, and that REALLY made all the mystical symbol stuff
seem really neato! Now it was the stuff of court and king- on the
sly, of course, since being caught actually playing with magickal
stuff pretty much got you burned at a stake. Until about 1959, when
the Inquisition finally was officially ended. My birth year.

Still
all those centuries of playing with pentacles had really gotten into
the culture, and when a bunch of English-type folks started
re-inventing what was left of old legends, myths and stories into the
new cult on the block, the gentle nature-religion called Wicca, or
Witchcraft, they naturally made use of all the best magick patterns
in history, and the best looking one simply has to be the pentacle..I
mean, it is SO cool Americans put the symbol on their planes in the
various World Wars and minor wars, and it still is the symbol for the
American Air Force. Guess why the Pentagon....is one. It just looks cool.

So
what does this pentacle actually mean, anyway? The Earthly Wiccan
one (as opposed to the Tryslmaistan wiccan one) has a star inside a
circle. In a nutshell, the star is Mankind (kind of looks like a
standing person, you know), and the power of the Will, and the circle
is the Universe, Goddess, and the sacred moon. the points of the star
can mean stuff too, if you like. It is supposed to be a happy symbol,
meaning life, and love, and good, wholesome magick. Of course, those
wacky Christians did not like this any more than they liked those
Roman Libraries, so we have all the scary movies about devil cults
using pentacles. Problem is that Wiccans do not believe in Christian
stuff, so they don't believe in any devil at all. Satanists are
really still Christians, because they still play with the
bible...just from the opposite side of the book. Witches don't even
care about all that god and devil stuff at all, and the bible is just
a story to them. Just paper. So the real meaning of the pentacle to
the people who claim it is the happy symbol for life magick.

Now,
just to be contrary..there always are folks who want to be, you
know?....some folks decided that all that scary movie stuff as pretty
cool. What can I say? So, in order to differentiate themselves from
the 'regular' forms of Wicca, they turned the pentacle 'upside down'
to symbolize going with 'black magick'... magick targeted at dark
purposes. Regular Wicca would see such folks as pretty silly, because
one of the basic rules of Earth Wicca is that whatwever someone does,
comes back to them three times over...so doing black magick would
logically be pretty stupid...since the person doing it would suffer
more than the target. But there ya go, humans are perverse.

OK,
with me so far? On Tryslmaistan, on Gryrnu, the pentacle is a
Trinary Pentacle....this means that the symbol is a triangle instead
of a pentagram, but serves the same cultural purpose...a sign of
magick and of life. The Gryrnu Wiccans call it that because the word
has survived, barely from long ago. Indeed all the words on Gryrnu
are distorted words from Earth languages....Greek, Finnish, Japanese,
Chinese, English, French...and a few others too. Since you have seen
Chou go on about the Alpabe runes, I think most of you have figured
out that humans are not native to the Tryslmaistan Universe, and only
barely survive because Vlax keeps their organs running amidst
different physical laws than we have on Earth, in the Mundis
Universe, where we all live.

The
early people who ended up in the Tryslmaistan Universe tried to make
sense of it, and in doing so, they resorted to all the stories and
myths they knew...and that is why there are 'Witches' and
'Alchemists', why they believe in Magick (anything a person does not
understand is Magick, or so I am told by my Steampunk-Electro-Atomic-Radio-Quantum
Computron!).

And
yes, the Wiccans of Gryrnu see the circle as the Universe, and also
the moon orb, and the triangle as a Worldplate. it only makes
sense...they are trying to make order of their universe.

Just
like Pythagoras and his buds did....and we all still do...today.

Actually,
this has been addressed obliquely in several things...several
Alternate Universe strips, the article on the site about the physics
of the Tryslmaistan universe, and so forth.

"Alrighty!!!
First, what is the elemental make-up of water
in the Unicorn Jelly universe? Is it the equivilant of H20 using
their elements, or diffrent? Also, I don't remember you actuly saying
this (you might have) but are there atoms in the Unicorn Jelly
universe? If not, or if the physical laws and elements are diffrent
enough from ours to effect this, what would happen to H20 if it was
suddenly transported to tryslmaistan? Would it be ripped apart from
the change of physical laws, or what? How about people, or a book of
advanced physics (hehehe)?" -Stevetrm

In
a nutshell, the universe of Tryslmaistan is based on 'tratons'
rather than 'atoms', or more correctly, tratons are the tryslmaistan
version of atoms. Where atoms are closed wavicle shells surrounding a
particulate nucleus, tratons are polyhedral forms made of charged
layered planes of dimensional energy that exude repultractive forces.

There
are over a thousand different tratonic elements on the Tryslmaistan
periodic table, and thus conversion from our universe (Mundis) to
Tryslmaistan is not unlike taking a 16 color bitmap and loading it
into a 256 color paint program...there are a LOT of possible 'colors'
to 'map' to.

In
the case of air, we have seen that a universe spanning atmosphere of
Tranium, Parbon, and Hurium gas dominates Tryslmaistan space. Of
these tratonal elements, tratonically remapped earth life can
metabolise tranium and parbon...the rough equivalents of Mundis
oxygen atoms and carbon dioxide molecules.

Tryslmaistan
water is made of the elements Quanogen, Norogen, and Balorium. The
three tratons form a tetrahedronal molecule where the corners are
Qua-Qua-Nor-Bal. This is used like water by the remapped earthly life
forms, and also by the crystalline native life forms...one thing both
actually have in common. Both crystal life and earthly life use the
same organic solvent....which is very fortunate, because if this bit
of luck had not been so, we would have no story to tell at all. It is
not an unlikely thing, though, since the closest analogue to water is
so common, both in the air, and in liquid form....the remapping would
almost certainly find this 'color' the closest match.

By
the way, Transversal Protean Cosmologic Transmogrification, or TPCT
is a natural effect that occurs whenever matter from one universe is
brought into another universe. It happens very rapidly, and releases
a lot of energy into exterior (both Ana and Kata) dimensions when it
occurs. The remapping is not deliberate, neither is it random..rather
is is closest analogue based. TPCT occurs because matter is a direct
expression of a given universe, so whenever matter is tranferred
between universes, it not so much 'becomes' new matter as creates an
equivalent expression of a specific pattern within a new cosmological
medium. Thus TPCT is not true transmogrification in the deepest
sense, but rather a translation of a pattern, such as matter. A
better name for it is 'Multiversal Translation'.

Um,
but all of that is for second semester Creatrixes (and Creators),
where you have to bone up on multiversal mechanics and basic
paradimensional cognigenesis. Sorry, probably boring if it is not
your major.

"You
have mentioned that humans are not native to the
Tryslmaistan Universe, and let on that they're from here, our
universe (whatever it's called) <Mundis>.
You also have definitely made it clear that humans there cannot
survive without Vlax. The weird
part is that you said that if matter were instantly transported from
here to there, it would be converted to their matter, and work for a
brief instance before it completely stopped. So, I bet we're all
wondering how the first humans from here to there survived long
enough to get vlax in their system."

Remember
back when Lupiko and Chou were making the long hike back from the
Evercliffs, all beaten and hurt, passed by the secret tea growing
facility, and such? They finally collapsed, because, what with
everything that had happened to them, Lupiko had forgotten to bring
any Vlax from the desert. It was growing all around them, but she was
so messed up, she just forgot. By the time they got to the forested
lands, they were in trouble. Eventually, Sisu saved them with fresh
Vlax. This was our first view in Unicorn Jelly of the 'Weakness'.

Now
the Weakness happens because the nearest analog (in Tryslmaistan) of
our atoms of copper and iron are metallic/crystalline tratons that
are almost, but not quite 'right' for the kind of bonds they have to
make to terrestrial organic molecules. Hemoglobin, the oxygen
carrying molecule that makes blood red, uses one single iron atom,
amidst 100 other atoms....the whole molecule acts as a nanomachine:
it traps an oxygen molecule (O2)like a bear trap, then releases it.
The traton that replaces iron mostly works, but gradually gets
unseated from the surrounding molecule.

What
reseats it, and makes the molecule work again, is Vlax. Vlax
molecules act like a steadying frame that hold the traton in place,
but do not otherwise interfere. The body gradually excretes Vlax,
over time, though.

Now
it takes time for a significant portion of the molecules of
hemoglobin in an animal to become unbalanced, and so the person or
creature will gradually feel more and more tired for no reason. Then
they get dizzy, lightheaded, and start having fainting spells.
Finally, coma, and eventually death.

Now
this process takes several weeks before coma occurs, so one can
imagine the original transplanted humans scrambling to find
something, ANYTHING to cure the symptoms. Some people, and some
animals, would be affected sooner...the 'canary in the coal mine'
concept. So they would be very eager to try anything to save their lives.

Eventually,
they would try Vlax. Vlaxifurm, the domes that Vlax comes from, are
unusual because they are soft, filled with gooey ooze, and almost
seem organic in an earthly way, in some aspects. It is reasonable
that the First People may have tried Vlax even right off.

This
is not counting the possibility that some of the transplanted
humans, who apparently came from a very high level of technology,
above ours, and thus most likely from our future, might have had some
sort of equipment to help them deduce what was going on as well.

As
to what 'actually' happened, we can never (due to things you will
eventually learn) find out for sure, but we can make these conjectures.

"Um,
in today's comic (8/28/2001), uh... why are
there clouds? That is, why would a world that has no other weather
besides the shatterel have clouds? Unless, of course, these clouds
are not made of water particles (or that universe's equivalent).
Also, is it me, or do those clouds look like they're blowing? And,
wouldn't blowing clouds mean the existence of 'wind', a word that
shouldn't even be in their language (since the only moving air is
from breathing or moving objects)?" ---Ross Perkins

Even
in a windless universe, clouds would form as discrete masses of
water vapor. Since there is an absolute universe-wide 'up' and 'down'
the clouds would have orientation. However, they get stretched out,
not by wind, but by planovective force. Planovection is one of the
physical laws unique to Tryslmaistan...like linovection, the force
that causes the absolute 'up and down'. Linovection is a stretching
of spacetime along one single axis, with all the lines of
hyperdimensional distortion being parallel. But planovection is like
a universe being layered, like sandstone or a cake. If spacetime is a
static 'block universe' ala Einstein, then Tryslmaistan is a crystal
block that is stretched in one direction, and 90 degrees to that,
layered. The result, planovective force, is what has arranged the
largest masses into 'plates'...since there is no mass-based gravity,
stuff in space does not normally form spheres, as in our universe.

Now
planovection normally only affects objects above a certain scale,
just as quantum pheneomena in our universe only really show up below
a certain scale...but quantum effects are still there on the macro
scale, and Tryslmaistan planovection is still there on the micro.

Since
it is 'weaker' on the small scale, it can only affect tiny, loose,
charged particles, and water vapor fits that bill. Planovection makes
the clouds streak along flat, decrete planes, over time, but that
time is longer than the clouds exist, so the result is roughly
earthlike cloud formations, at least most of the time. One
would think that there
is no rain, because the temperature is constant in the normal Tryslmaistan
universe, but rain does
fall, usually only over Worldplates,
due to factors
of droplet size, and static charge release.
There is no thunder or lightning, however. Tryslmaistan
is a static universe, 'steady-state' as they would say in
cosmological physics. The temperature is always the same, everywhere.
The clouds form, the clouds fade and re-form, as the particles are
affected by the various forces, and by moving objects causeing brief
'winds'....specifically the day and night orbs around each
worldplate. These churn the atmospheric void, but collectively do not
cause a uniform 'wind' that moves in one direction or another.

Shatterel
is not water vapor, but the air itself, and it melts back into air,
once the charge is lost. The charge comes from those day and night
orbs spinning about a worldplate, acting like a dynamo. The built up
charge reaches critcal three times a 'year' and disburses as an
effect upon the local atmosphere next to a worldplate...Shatterel.

It
is always as dependable as clockwork, always exactly the same,
always the same pattern.

Unless
something is very, very, very wrong.

(In
response
to a
discussion concerning the larger number of
homosexual people in the population of Gryrnu compared to Earth, and
the Kinsey Stats used in the Character
Information Area)

Everyone's
theories on the Kinsey scale issue are most interesting indeed!

On
earth, at least in the America of the 1950's when Kinsey and Pomeroy
did the Kinsey Report, the average Kinsey number was around 2. If I
remember it was something like 2.2, 2.3 somewhere in that range.
Mostly heterosexual, some repressed bisesexual tendancies. very few
people came up as either a 1 or a 6 (1 is absolutely het, 6 is
absolutely homo).

It
is true that the average Kinsey on on Gryrnu is higher than on
earth, it is closer to 3.1, wich means most folks are bisexual. There
are many more gay folk than on earth...the percentage on earth is
around 10%. For Gryrnu, 30% of the population is gay. This is
actually a significant bias.

The
why of it is complex. One factor is environmental stress.
Homosexuality is caused not by genes, but by prenatal homones. In a
nutshell, in animals, including humans, when stress,either emotional
or biochemical, is applied as specific 'windows' in fetal
development. In rats, this can be done with as little stres as moving
a cage from one room to another. The key is that the stress has to
occur at just the right moment in brain development. There are three
such windows. One controls internal gender, or gender identity.
Another is where the brain develops the function if which sex it will
be attracted to directly. The third determines behavoral
characteristics such as nurturance behavior...in humans, what we
could call core masculine or feminine traits.

Any
combination is possible. You could end up with a straight man who
exhibits feminine behavior, or a gay man who is tough and butch as
hell. You could end up with partial results...a bisexual woman who is
very feminine, or a straight woman who is very masculine seeming.

Gryrnu
is a harsh environment for earth life, but there is also the matter
of how tratons...the equivalent of atoms in the tryslmaistan universe
work. They work almost correctly for earth life, but not quite. That
is why Vlax is used. But even with Vlax, organic chemistry is just a
tiny bit 'off', and this varies with Vlax dosages. So, between the
high stress, and the Vlax and molecular issues, the result is more
gay folks than on earth.

Something
like this happens on earth too...more gay folks are born just after
-or during- wartime than during peacetime. One theory is that this is
a human version of the adaptations that other animals have to affect
population rates...for instance rabbits will re-absorb their unborn
babies in times of starvation, most cats will eat their kittens, and
wolves actually enforce celebacy (the alpha male and female break up
trysting wolves). There is another advantage to the human way, though.

Gay
folks are, on average, one standard deviation (about 15 points) in
intelligence greater than straight folks, and about the same increase
in creative ability. So, not only is the chance of baby-making
reduced, but the folks that are not as interested in poppping pups
are smarter and more clever. That makes them useful for solving
problems, finding new ways of doing things, and if they get dead
while being so adventurous, the population has not lost a
reproductive chance...or so it would seem to work out, back in
caveman days. Now, of course, we have a different life, vastly more
food, just as much or more stress, and gay folks often want
children...and we have the tech to do this without anyone having to
have sex with anyone they are not attracted to.

Now
you know why gay folks exist in animals and humans, how they come to
be, and what the evolutionary advantage is. It also explains why the
percentage of gay folks in science, medicine, high technology such as
computers, and all forms of art is -much- greater than in any other
occupation...say driving a truck, or resurfacing a road, or sewage
work. In fact...heh....(personal joke here) the percentage of gay
folk in the computer industry (where I have spent most of my career)
is about 30%...close to the same as Gryrnu.

"Wouldn't
the environment also be a factor though? The hormones are the single
best explanation I've ever heard, but the fact remains that probably
ninety percent (exaggerating) of NFL fans are watching because they
like to see men in tight pants touch each other's bums. Yet given a
test, they would certifiably answer negative because it's been beaten
into them. This world, this society, is still very puritan in many
ways, and tends to be as harsh as possible to anyone living outside
Stepford. On Grynu those puritan origins, while possible (hope not),
would be extremely diluted by all the other cultures it absorbed.
Children wouldn't have hatred and fear of gays beaten into them, so
when puberty hit they'd be allowed to follow their hearts to either
gender. Or both. As a result the natural thirty percent isn't
repressed to fifteen. Just a thought." ~Lee

That
is a good point. It is clear that as far as civil law and religious
influence are concerned, being gay or straight is immaterial. Not
only are folks like Yasui and Millian able to marry, this is
perfectly ordinary in Gryrnese culture. There is no Bible or Koran in
the Tryslmaistan universe, no Christ, no Allah, no 'sin'. There are
various laws, of course, and some of the laws are pretty messed up,
just like anywhere, but bigotry over sexual preference, as we
understand it, simply does not exist on Gryrnu. Now, there IS bigotry
over racial and ethnic boundries, as we have seen, and, as we will
see, near the end...there are some folks who do have an issue of who
is gay and who is not...but not out of religious reasons or reasons
of tradtion. Rather the conflict that will come over this issue will
be peculiar to existence within the alien realm of Tryslmaistan
itself. We
shall see this issue brought to light near the end of Unicorn Jelly.

(Regarding
the fact that Lupiko was
told that her mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage)
"They
can and do perform autopsies? They are able to come to *that*
conclusion? (and even if it's just what Lupiko has been *told*, it
has to be possible, right? if it wasn't, no one would've come up with
it.) I'm not a doctor, but I'd think a certain amout of, erm, medical
knowledge would be necessary. Wouldn't it?" -Ricky

Perhaps
you should go back and read the beginning of the strip again..

The
highest calling...the most elite position that Gryrnu Witches hold
is as healers. Within the culture, this means that Lupiko's mother
was a doctor. This is why Faelini's family, and especially Muri, her
sister, pushed so hard for Fae to get her degree: a doctor in the
family means money. Fae started out poor...because her sister helped
elevate her, that is why they had that big house, and why Lupiko came
from a rich background. On Gryrnu, the highest Witches perform the
same function as doctors and surgeons.

Lesser
Witch occupations go from that all the way down to growing crops and
raising pigs, or performing in shows, or running restaurants. But
Muri wanted only the BEST for her sister, so Fae had to become a full
doctor, a full healer.

All
medical proceedures on Gryrnu are by law the domain of the working
Witches. The tools that the Witches use for things like surgery are
built by the Alchemists, but otherwise, the witches do all the
medical stuff.

If
you recall, the very first job we see Lupiko doing is attempting to
cure a young girl infected by Crystal Basilisk spunk...and that is
how Chou came into the picture. Lupiko was trying to be a country
doctor, and that is why she often quotes what medicinal compound or
plant, or crystal life form should be used for whatever illness (the
first Shatterel storm we saw).

However,
because of the severe and totalitarian limits on discovery and
invention, medical advancement is almost nonexistant, and traditional
cures and techniques are all that are legally used. Some of those are
very pseudo-medieval, but others are remarkably advanced, as though
they had been handed down from a superior, lost technology...say
Myrmil, for instance?

That
is how they know about cerebral hemorrhages. It is also how the
Alchemists know how to decribe things like 'tratons' (the atoms of
the Tryslmaistan universe) and molecules, and other things they do
not have the technology to rigthfully know...all handed down in books
copied from books, copied from even older books....

Keep
in mind that we are dealing with a civilization that has degenerated
from a much more advanced state, clinging desperately to whatever
they can save, of the glory they once possessed.

"I
Wonder,
(before humans made organic soil) is a
(generic) plate mainly made of sand and water on its surface, and is
rock beneith the surface, or is it sand all the way through (kind of
like our moon)? How deep does the ocean go? Is the sea bed curved
like some sort of giant, triangular bowl? (Sorry, using sea and ocean
interchangeably...not that it matters there, similar to the
discussion of the word 'sail'.)"

A
worldplate is made of huge solid slabs of densly packed crystal on
the bottom, (where by the way, an ecology of upside-down crystal
plants and clinging insectoids live) which is then topped by a gravel
of crystal boulders, which graduate to the sands of the crystal
desert. The desert is interrupted by spikes of Crystal in places, but
otherwise forms spookily regular domes or hills that follow the solid
mass of the plate below. The Central Sea, which is freshwater and
salt free, sits in a huge triangular bowl as you suggest. The ocean,
at its deepest point, reaches halfway to the bottom of the Worldplate
as a whole.

"Oh,
and are there water dwelling
crystal/white blooded life?" -Rossperk

Yes
indeed. Vlax, for instance, uses the water for part of it's life
cycle...Vlax domes produce worm-like children than dig their way to
the sea. In the sea, the worms grow to form huge lantern-shaped
structures that float like jellyfish do. When these reach maturity,
they tear into flat ribbons, about two meters long and 10cm wide,
which undulate to the shore. The ribbons wriggle across the land,
excreting great amounts of Vlax as they go, until they reach the
crystal desert. Some become new Vlax domes, and others keep crawling,
right off the edge. It is believed that they drift to colonize other
Worldplates, but no one knows for sure.

The
newcomer to the scene is the Koi fish cultured by the Humans...and
there have been rumors of something else, down there, something odd,
and terrible, and perhaps mutated from Koi and Goddess knows what
else...but again, no one knows for sure.

Well
I do, but I ain't telling.

"Where's
the Gryrnu art, music and literature!? Didn't I
once hear something about the Wiccans producing plays? Or would
attempts at creative expression be viewed a "new way of
thinking" and thus a violation of the pact...? " -Rootstudio

Oh,
there is a thriving, if somewhat institutionalized, art culture
within Gryrnese society.

Traditional
plays are done on stage, such as "The Goddess Song",
"The Marriage of the Alchemist Kharris", and the popular
"Splendor Of Myrmil", as well as comedies such as "The
Lost Glasses". The latter details the misadventures of the
clumsy and forgetful Alchemist Pandorotto (a favorite comedic
character in several works), who works at basic construction labor.
The gag with Pandorotto is that his glasses are always represented a
gigantic...due to a paperwork error that can never be corrected. He
hates the things (they are bigger than the head of the actor) and
various slapstick in always involved. Eventually, Pandorotto takes
his glasses off to do actually finish some job, and naturally loses
them in some fashion. They might be taken by children ("The
Alchemist's Bothersome Day"), buried in sand ("The Jelly
and The Alchemist"), or sat upon all day by an enourmous Bosom
Sow ("The Lost Glasses"). Pandorotto then endeavors to
avoid the requisite stiff fine for not wearing his Alchemists Glasses
(Pandorotto is notoriously cheap) in ever increasingly absurd and
desperate ways when -of course- the council (or some official) tours
his worksite.

Gryrnese
culture includes a kind of puppet show of sorts, too, which is a
strange combination of Kamishibai and Stick Puppets. Backgrounds,
switched in and out of a picture frame, are used with flat, slightly
mechanical wooden puppets in the entertainment known as 'Telets'. The
Telet play is an entertainment for both adults and children, and
there are even somewhat...mature.....Telets too.

Every
year, the Wiccans hold an arts and crafts festival, and the
Alchemists counter with a Traditional Mechanisms Show, where
mechanical clocks, small toys, and permitted tools are judged.

There
is also the Animal Fair, which allows the top breeders to show off
their pigs, rats, crickets and chickens. In case anyone was
wondering, they do not permit any animal fighting...animals are too
precious to allow them to be damaged without survival based cause
(such as for food).

The
Wiccans are very big on dancing, and there are three main kinds of
dance that are taught: Farmkint, which involves many people in large
circles, High Wiccan, which involves elaborate and very slow dance
moves that are more like pantomime than what we think of as dance,
and Animalan, which is centered around imitation, of people, of
animals, and of any other life form from a Jelly to a tree!

There
is also a general art form of doing Talcryl scrolls...many of which
you have seen adorning walls and rooms all over Gryrnu. Calligraphy
is very big on Gryrnu, and there are contests, shows and academy
courses in it.

These
are some of the most notable art forms on Gryrnu...we just have not
seen them in Unicorn Jelly because the characters have been too busy
to bother bringing them into the action!

"<Shatterel
forms in enclosed spaces
of still air, and can suffocate
people in their homes, so they have to go outside> So,
wait... how come some alchemist hasn't yet thought of building a
simple motorized fan... pardon me, an "automatic air adgitator
and shattrell nullifier" and putting it in the enclosed spaces
before a Shatterel
storm?" -Warpzone23

As
a matter of fact, rich people do have mechanical fans. They run like
clocks, if rather -large- and very expensive clocks, and once wound
up, can run for nearly an hour at a time, sweeping the air about at a
pretty decent clip. Servants keep them wound up. Thilia, head of the
Council, has no less than seven of the bloody things. She doesn't
even go outside during Shatterel. But then, she is the head of the
whole farg'in Council.

We
have not seen one, because so far, we have mostly been following the
lives of a very poor Witch and her daughter as they get chased about
by mean people.

You
might be interested to know that there are mechanized toys,
clockwork crop watering machines, a rather top-of-the-line clockwork
Bosom-Sow milking machine (which actually tends to scare the poor
piggies unless they are raised with it), and the Alchemists even have
-though they keep it secret- a very crude resonant crystal
communication device. They use a kind of Gryrnese 'morse code' on the
thing. They consider it their 'secret advantage'.

Again,
we have not seen these things because...none of the characters in
the story have needed to be around where these things are to be seen,
or played with.

I
read your comic every Mon thru Fri, and I was
wondering about your bosom sow in today's comic. I am an animal
science major at the college of Agriculture and Life Sciences of
Cornell University, and my family used to raise swine so Gryrnu's
agricultural system seems a little impractical. Specifically what is
the intended correlation between the swine we raise in this country
and those of Gryrnu. Basically, are they supposed to be the
same animal? If so, I thought you should know that pigs have
teats not nipples (think cow/cat/dog versus human as far as how it's
illustrated). Another thing to consider is the way in which pigs
reproduce. Piglets are highly dependant on the sow, and it is
not practical to raise them separate like we do dairy calves.
This is largely because piglets are not very good at producing heat,
and there are a lot of them per litter. Pigs milk is also very
high in fat because of the inability to transfer fat to the fetuses
through the placenta. I'd be curious to see how you
can explain this. -Helen Evans (not
a forum
question, but so good I had to add it)

There
is an Alternate Universe Strip showing the Bosom SowAvailable
HERE

The
Bosom Sow is the result of perhaps as much as 300,000 years of human
breeding and selection. While this sounds like an incredible time
period, and one in which -far- more dramatic change would be likely
than the development of breast-like hypertrophied teats, it is to be
understood that Tryslmaistan is a low-entropy steady-state universe,
with correspondingly longer lifespans, and evolutionary change is not
natural to it. Although terrestrial animals are also not natural to
the Tryslmaistan universe, they are greatly affected by it, so that
change is slower, overall.

Now
I say that there should be much greater change in a third of a
million years than what is shown, because it is to be remembered that
all the extant agricultural crops, and domesticated animals of earth
were selectively bred in only 10,000 years, a mere fraction of the
time the Bosom Sow was developed. The current array of foods and
domestic animals common to our industrialized experience cannot even
be said, in most cases to even vaguely resemble the original life
forms from which they were developed, and the degree of change that
can make a broccoli from a cabbage, or provide for the full
domestication of wild fox canines in less than 30 years shows that
the effect of selective breeding should have, by all rights, done far
more in 300,000 years to the pig. But, Tryslmaistan is a slow place.

Now
the 'bosom' of the Bosom Sow is a bosom in name only, and are a
hypertrophied teat. The swine were carefully bred for this purpose,
and the fat content is quite a bonus, rather than a hardship. Fat is
very, very useful in countless ways, and the Gryrnese make use of
everything they have with an imagination not unlike a society filled
with George Washington Carvers. They have to. It is to be remembered
that the humans only have available to them 17 distinct lines of
terrestrial life to work with, and have struggled to survive in an
environment arguably more hostile to earthly life than frozen
Antarctica. Consequently, every single animal and plant that humans
can use is cultivated with a care that would be unimaginable on our
abundant earth.

Bosom
Sow piglets are cared for constantly by humans. A special tunic-like
outfit, called a Ruklan, is worn by piglet caregivers, and when the
animal is not engaged in any given activity, it is carried more
carefully than a human baby, in a large pouch in the Rukan, so that
the piglet is in constant contact with bare human skin. The piglets
are unnaturally docile by terrestrial terms, as are the adults,
another result of selective breeding...extreme passivity (this can
been seen in the special miniseries strip, in that the sow shown acts
more like a perfectly trained lap dog than a pig.) It is not
only considered an honor to carry a piglet in this fashion within
Gryrnese culture, the job has a waiting list. The piglet is given
better attention than a human child would be given, and truth be
told, is actually valued more highly...a child is another mouth to
feed, ultimately, but a piglet will become a source of survival for
everyone. It is to be understood that Gryrnese values are not earthly
ones, because of the harshness of their environment. One Bosom Sow
piglet is worth several human lives.

The
Bosom Sow is only eaten after it dies of natural causes, which,
because of the incredibly sterile environment, are long in coming.
Bosom Sows live upwards of 60 years, and that which is not converted
to food is, like all organic matter including dead humans, put into
the Wiccan composting facilities to help create and maintain soil.
Eating an animal so old would be disgusting to we on earth, but they
make quite a ritual out of it on Gryrnu, and the deceased sow is
given a respect that humans themselves do not even give to their own.
Needless to say, the murder of a sow is unthinkable, so much so that
it is not a capitol offence...there is only a small, token fine.
Anyone who kills a bosom sow is pitied in a way that is quite alien
to human cultures. People try to forget such an event as quickly as
possible, it is too horrible to remember.

Sows
all are named, given birthday celebrations, doted on, sleep on
specially sewn beds, or, even in the bed of their keepers, are
housebroken and use a litter box, and are honored guests at events.
So, for Ylla to have won second place at the Fair is an event that is
not like winning a prize at a state fair on earth...it would be the
equivalent of winning at the Olympics. Ylla can look forward to fame,
fortune, and constant requests for her and her sow PuuPuu-Ko to
inaugurate projects and events, be present at state functions, and
attend, together, Council dinners. No bands at the time of winning
you say? No Parades?....No, because that might upset the animals.
Very different mindset.

What
of slaughter for male swine? Handled with a delicacy again alien to
earth. They play music for them, give them a last meal, groom them
sing to them, cry a very great deal, and dispatch them painlessly.
More tears, and an entirely separate industry deals with carving and
parting them out...the actual keepers are spared the 'horror' of
dissecting what amounts to one of 'the children'.

Farmers
of all kinds are very well paid on Gryrnu. They are elite, and have
many privileges that even Council members do not have. The reason for
this relative freedom and wealth is their animals, and the survival
they represent.

The
Gryrnese do not do these things because they especially 'love
animals', or because they 'revere life' any more than terrestrial
humans do. They do these things because they were taught to do them,
because it is part of a system of survival that works for them. The
Gryrnese are just folks...and they care about their own survival very
much....so much that they do what is necessary, and also what has
become traditional. With so little to work with, they have made
an art out of making the most of, and out of, what few animals and
plants are available to them.

Do
I really think that swine could be bred to have functioning
super-teats, effective breasts to give milk? Yes, I do...if people
had enough time for selective breeding, and enough motivation to do
so...if their lives depended on it. Ultimately, both human breasts
and the teats of pigs evolved on earth from sweat glands, both are
hypertrophied sebaceous glands. The oils and water and protein of
sweat has evolved to become milk, and in both humans and pigs, it
serves the same mechanical function for the survival of young.

The
Bosom Sow is just more hypertrophied yet.

Wow,
I can tell you put a lot of thought into answering my question, I
must admit I expected a short response that avoided the actual question

I
totally agree with you that pigs could be selected for milk
production as well as decreased litter size to increase the available
milk yield for humans. It seems though, that they would have
had a lot of losses in the beginning due to the way fashion in which
pigs reproduce (lots of babies w/high losses, kinda like mice).
So what sets pigs apart from other livestock that they were able to
survive (sheep or goats seem more practical than pigs)?

Pigs
were the last thing left, along with chickens. The First People,
being the usual bunch of humans, found themselves suddenly in an
utterly alien and -for some- hellish universe. At least nine, and
perhaps as many as 16 cultures and time periods were represented, and
between terror, language and culture issues, and the sheer mind
mangling horror of it all, many mistakes were made. Although many
animal species came along on the divots of earth that were under the
humans, as well as many species of plants, only 17 ultimately
survived the initial weeks and months.

Some
animals were simply eaten, without much thought, until a form of
authority finally dominated, and instituted rationing, and rational
thought. Fortunately, some of the divots contained the majority of
entire farms, and in two cases, orchards. Of the orchards, one from
China (plums), and one from France (apples), only the plums were
successfully protected and survived to the time of Lupiko and Chou.
Of the grains, only rice made it, wheat and barley did not.

Then
came the problem of Vlax. As animals and people became mysteriously
ill, weak and failing, and eventually began to die, the end seemed
inevitable. While my Muse has not told me how the matter of Vlaxifurm
being used came about, endless possibilities come to mind: since
Vlaxifurm is the one crystal plant that contains a liquid gel, it may
have seemed potentially edible to someone, or possibly medicinal. One
of the divots was certainly from our future, so it may have been
possible that advanced technology was used to chemically analyze it,
or that, as one reader suggested, actually create Vlaxifurm in some
manner as a nanoreplicating crystal machine-plant. Or perhaps someone
simply noticed a hungry, lost animal surviving after eating from it.
I may never know. But the need for Vlax to overcome the
incomparability of earthly biology in the Tryslmaistan universe is
definite, and those peoples and animals and plants that were
given Vlax survived, and those that did not, eventually died.

Between
all of these factors, and adding the problem of dealing with the
native sapient species, the Jellies, as well as the various chemical
and salt hungry crystal beasts, the many varieties of life that came
with the humans were gradually whittled down to the 17 we know in the
story today. Pigs were bred for milk, bred essentially to replace
cows and goats, and even to some extent sheep, because they were what
was left. In short, the humans made use of what little they had when
all was finally settled enough for survival to truly become
established. At this point, losses would have been terrifying, so one
can imagine every human in those days literally slaving for the every
need and care of each individual piglet, even beyond the level of
current era Gryrnu. It would have been like Cro-Magnons lost in a
cave, struggling to keep their last bit of fire alive.

The
story of the Gryrnese is the story of any human population forced to
cope with an extreme and hostile environment. Just as the
Innuit once lived only on the flesh of fish and animals native to
their hostile and frozen northern clime, or the tribal Nigerian once
lived entirely off of a staple diet of cow milk mixed with cow blood,
supplemented by termites and the odd edible root, so the Gryrnese
make do with what they have, and bend it to their need. And, just as
with the Innuit, who can tolerate a level of vitamin A (from eating
the liver of the polar bear) that is fatal -within minutes- to
a European (as some ill fated anthropologists once found
out...oops!), the world in turn makes changes to the people that
inhabit it.

So,
on Gryrnu, pigs are life, along with crickets, bees, koi, ants and
chickens...because that is all there is. And the reason that there
are only six animals is because it took humans time to get their act
together, form some sort of strategy, enforce that strategy, and
overcome terrible odds. Some of the ways I depict humans in Unicorn
Jelly are decidedly unflattering, and even fairly cynical, but I also
recognize that humans are incredibly inventive and heroic survivors
regardless of the odds. What they cannot overcome, they change. Hence
the Bosom Sow... not to mention the high vitamin-oil (E and A, in
case you are wondering) content 'Color' crickets, the overly fluffy,
almost hairy chickens (they have bred their chickens, though I have
not yet shown this, to produce feathers that are exceptionally long
and fibrous, and so forth.

"How
does the worldplate form in such a way as to hold
"water"? That, and what keep it from leaking out? Or is
that where rain comes from? Leaking world plates?" -Xiombarg,

The
Worldplates are a solid mass of crystalline materials that are, due
to the contracting and compressing force of planovection,
increasingly dense towards the middle of the Worldplate. This causes
a slight indentation of the plate, both on the top, and the bottom,
as the matter condenses....remember that in Tryslmaistan (as in
Mundis!), not all crytalline materials are hard...indeed most are of
varying qualities from liquid to semisolid. Some are rubbery, and
others semipermiable. This contraction in the center of a Worldplate
causes the 'bowl' effect to provide a basin to collect rain into a
freshwater sea...the 'Central Sea' of each Worldplate.

Water
evaporates into the air just as it does on our world, and this forms
clouds, and the clouds eventually rain. This is a familiar cycle. The
clouds tend to rain more over a Worldplate, rather than out in
interstitial space, simply because of a combination of dust, around
which water vapor can accumulate, and the Tryslmaistan equivalent of
static charge. Remember that Linovection, the equivalent of gravity
in Tryslmaistan, has essentially no effect on objects above a certain
scale, and also below a certain scale...which means that very, very
fine particulate dust is essentially weightless, and thus remains
airborn for a very long time, unless attracted by static charge to an
object (such as another particle or a bit of water vapor, or even a
wall. On Gryrnu, they must sometimes dust the walls and ceiling of
their homes, not just the shelves!). Worldplates have a surprizing
amount of essentially invisible airborn dust surrounding them,
helping rain clouds to develop.

When
it does rain, it is very, very light by terrestrial standards, and
they do not have lightning or thunder, ever. The rain drops
themselves are quite large, but fall slowly. It would seem surreal,
almost cartoon-like
to someone newly from our world and universe. Nearly half-inch wide
drops, sometimes larger, falling in slow motion to a gentle impact on
the ground, or, if very close to a wall, actually being pulled by
static charge to hit, and run down, that surface.

The
water normally flows down through the composite that makes up the
Worldplate, until it reaches the dense layers, where it gradually
flows into the bowl that makes the freshwater Central Sea.

"What
is it that causes the day and night orbs to rotate around
the worldplates? And how did this come to be?" ~Taaminara

The
origin of the day and night orbs are pretty much covered in the
concept of Tryslmaistan being a steady-state universe....it
always-is-was-will-be. Unlike our own Mundis universe, Tryslmaistan
has no origin and no end...it had no 'Big Bang' and it will never
suffer entropic heat death. It is a perpetual motion machine, which
is the very definition of a steady-state universe.

The
day and night orbs are made of a single element each, and are hard,
solid, and about 20k in diameter. The uniform matterwhich
the orbs are made of generates light as it encounters 'resonant
friction' as the bodies orbit through the basic Forces that govern
the Tryslmaistan universe. This 'Friction' energy is converted into
the equivalent of light (ray-like lumons) in the Tryslmaistan
universe. The sun orbs are made of the element 'solarine', and the
moon orbs of an element called 'noctrium'. Rather obvious element
names, but there you go. These elements are terribly, terribly
poisonous, but not 'radioactive' in the way that we understand the word.

The
orbs can, in some ways, almost be considered to be like the old,
incorrect, idea of how electrons were supposed to 'orbit' the nucleus
of an atom, back in crappy school physics books. They are highly
charged monoelemental spheres that have a repultractive relationship
with regard to each other. They remain at a fixed 'balance' distance
between their comutual repulsion and attraction for each other.
Constantly charged up by their interaction with the local fields near
a Worldplate, and the forces of the universe as a whole, they release
that energy in motion. The reason they rotate is because, in part,
they are affected by the Worldplate being triangular...charge
displacement is not equal, because the triangular shape is wider on
one side and pointy-thin on another. One orb dips, affected by the
wide side, the other flips up, less affected by the small side of the
Worldplate. The charge exchange sort of works like a giant electric
motor, and the two orbs do another revolution, and so on. Because
they are bound to each other, and to the proximity of the Worldplate
itself, they do not go zooming off, and because they are smaller than
100km, they are not affected by the large scale forces, such as
Planovection. The orb elements themselves are neutral to Linovection
as well, and if you had a piece of the material (in a safe
environment..they really are quite poisonous), it would hang in the
air, affected by invisible forces from the universe at large. In
fact, in ancient Myrmil, they had a device for measuring local charge
and force, and this device used small chips of noctrium amd solarine
as the basis for measurment...in the way that natural lodestone can
be used to make a magnetic compass on our earth (only more fancy!).

Why
are the two orb elements unaffected by Linovection? Because they are
composed of tratons that share a peculiar trait: polarized force
planes. There are some 33 elements in the Tryslmaistan periodic table
that are immune to Linovection, and they are all rare, part of the
'Abeyant Group' of elements, all characterized by polarized tratonic
planes that effectively 'fall through' the 'grain' of the Linovective field.

"Odd
question. Is Unicron
J-L-Y
from a world or a plate?" ~Lee

Well,
the Worldplates are worlds. They are the equivalent of planets for
the Tryslmaistan universe, each one an 'earth'....a small earth, but
an earth nonetheless. Maybe you mean, "was Unicron made in the
advanced civilization on the Worldplate of Myrmil, or did it come
from our Earth with the First People?" if THAT is your question,
Unicron J-L-Y was most definiately constructed on Myrmil, and is one
of the robotic crystaloid-technology war machines used by the
Alchemist Faction and The Wiccan Faction -both- to fight each other.

The
Unicron model was a mass-produced, easily programmed direct assault
unit, capable of close and medium range delivery of highly
destructive Charge capacitance bolts, with a fire rate of one bolt
every three seconds. Each bolt could draw a line across terrain or
target, superheating matter at the point of impact causing a
catastrophic blast resulting from rapidly expanding, vaporized
material. The Unicron has two double-ended advanced crystal impulse
units (these are the basis of what eventually became the 'Brooms'
used by the Gryrnese of today) and six stationary vertical
crystalloid repulsion towers (a technology lost to the current
Gryrnese people) to provide a stable lift. The entire machine uses a
crystallonic neural net capable of making independant targeting and
mission objective decisions. Unicron is powered by artificial,
mutually annihilating (slow burn) hyperstate Yauron crystals which
are pressed together inside a simple mechanical frame. (all of this
technology is very, very beyond the modern Gryrnese) The Unicron, of
which there were nine different versions including the J series
(J-L-Y being "J series, Lightweight, Yauron drive), was built by
the long vanished 'Nakimono Universal Machines', based on the
floating Myrmillian artificial satellite island of Klasgune, some
300,000 years to the past of the current story.

Woo!
I guess it wasn't a spelling error after all. Huh.

"Artificial
Sattelite Island, eh? I guess they were damned advanced after all,
if they could make satellite islands large enough to bypass
linovection." -LordRoberts

Put
large enough Repulsion Towers and a big enough Yauron Plant to power
them, and you could suspend a city. Especially if the money of BOTH
Factions was behind the project (remember, Nakimono sold the Unicrons
to both factions equally). But you are right, Myrmil was damned
advanced technologically. Not enough to escape the Tryslmaistan
universe, so no warp gates, teleportation, or stuff like that, but
they did make maximum use of the basic laws we have seen hinted at,
or explored so far in the strip. If the Gryrnese can make 'Gloms' for
a cold light source, that idea is a pale, faint and fragile memory of
the Myrmillians using the same basic concept to make a Yauron Drive,
with two crystals making not just light, but unbelievable amounts of
energy. The Myrmillians were -centuries- beyond the technology of
Gryrnu as it is today.

Consider
how America can spend billions on a stealth bomber that can drop
bombs powerful enough to literally evaporate an entire mountain (much
less a city) and the idea of making a suspended platform seems quite
a bit less amazing. A floating platform would have strategic
advantages to a company like Nakimono....if a few HUGE crystal
impulse units...'Brooms' were installed, you could move it, making it
a mobile platform...it could be positioned where it was needed, or
-most importantly- kept safely neutral, so it could sell Unicron
mechs to whichever Faction bid the highest. Being neutral during a
war can be very, very profitable, if one happens to be selling
something both sides need. It can also be risky, so being distant is
a basic requirement. Makes ruthless sense, if you think about it.
Guess what company finally came up with the Trato-Yauronic Bomb...the
last weapon ever sold on Myrmil?

Discussing
the behaviors
of Unicron J-L-Y in the story, Warpzone32
and Crowfrog debated how the Myrmilian people left Myrmil...in
a pre-planned, anticipated evacuation, or running with whatever they
still had available after catastrophe. My answer describes the last
days mof Myrmil, and how Unicron J-L-Y came to the Gryrnu we know....

Because
almost
no one in Factional power on Myrmil actually believed that the
Trato-Yauronic Bomb could -really- destroy the entire Worldplate,
no preparations were made. The Myrmilians on the attack barges and
warships watched in horror as everyone and everything they loved
crumbled and fell into oblivion. This horror was turned to utter
despair as the chunks of Myrmil, a few days later, hit other Worldplates
below and destroyed them too. The utter nonsense of the 'Chain
Reaction' theory of Worldplate collapse espoused by some very few was
undeniable. They could not just go to the next Worldplate nearby,
because all too soon, the disaster would wrap around the universe,
and come crashing down, much bigger than they could imagine. They had
to run.

Run
they did, using anything and everything they still had flying. The
artificial island that was the base for building the Unicorn Units
was too slow to take with them, so it was abandoned to its eventual
doom. The Myrmilians
scattered, desperate to travel as far as they possibly could.
Unfortunately, none of their fleet was equipped for a truly long
voyage, and if it had not been for the gardens, farms, animals and
seeds on the independent,
artificial Nakimono Weapons
island, there would have been -no- hope in any event. They scavenged
everything they could find...some 23 different species. Not all would
survive the trip. The displaced Myrmilians settled when they could no
longer travel, but during the initial flight, the Pact of Myrmil was
already being developed. Whatever initiated
the conflict in the first place was now irrelevant in the face of
total annihilation.

As
time went on, each Worldplate that was migrated to, as the storm
approached, presented the everpresent challenge of colonization, of
conquering the natives, of building up an infrastructure to run
again. Technology was lost, ships were lost, tools were lost, and as
the millennia passed, even true knowledge
about Myrmil
was lost...partly by time, and partly by design.

Many
things had been left behind at the site of lost Myrmil, though,
besides that floating island...armored platforms, crippled ships, and
many, many robotic weapons. Although given the order to stand down,
the strain of running constantly, hovering, waiting for orders that
never came, damaged by the war, these robotic units developed faults.
Some began attacking once again, the last instruction, the only instruction
they were made to carry out. Those attacked were forced to respond,
and soon a pointless robotic conflict ensued, in the empty place
where Myrmil once hung.

By
the time the storm had wrapped around the cosmos, only a few
Myrmilian mechs still prowled, engaged in endless combat. These
robots were very sophisticated, and had the ability to make independent
tactical decisions...they could evaluate threats, attack in teams,
and run from superior power. The Unicron series were especially
'smart' and the approaching storm, falling from above, registered
beyond any threat level they were programmed to evaluate. They alone
ran. They fled the scene en mass. This made them easy targets for
lesser robot drones, who picked them off as they flew away. These
lesser drones were still shooting even as the storm swept down from
above and obliterated them.

Certainly,
one lone Unicron unit escaped the drones, and the storm. On and on
it traveled, following two instructions: locate and destroy the
enemy, and preserve its own functionality. It knew which direction to
go...and it knew what to flee from. Eventually, when the distance was
so great that the storm no longer registered, the Unicron assessed
that it was running out of power. It assessed its situation. It was
safe as far as its scans could show, There was no enemy. There was no
place to dock. There was no place to refuel. There was nothing around
it. It did what a nearly mindless automaton would do: it shut itself
off to wait for retrieval. The fact that it would fall as a result
was irrelevant, as this was a situation it was not ever expected to
encounter, a situation not accounted for in its programming. Those
who programmed it knew there would always be a Myrmil to land on.

Unicron
J-L-Y fell for ages, for eons, perfectly preserved as it was from
the moment it powered down. Until it hit Gryrnu.

"*blink*
If elves have longer life spans, and the general
assumption among the common people is that Gryrnu has been colonized
for 300 years, how come most of the elves don't know that this is not
true? " -OBAKETENSHI

There
are several reasons for this.

One,
is that Gryrnu is a fairly harsh environment for the alien creatures
from earth, the humans, who have imagined their Vlax-induced
mutations to be fantasy
races from mythology. There are a lot of ways to get killed in the
Tryslmaistan universe, from crystal fauna to deadly, toxic crystal
plants, the war of colonization that always occurs for centuries
after an Ark Ship lands on a new Worldplate, and humans killing each
other, to boot.

Secondly,
people are people, even if they live in an alien universe. The
mutated humans of Gryrnu are still human...and that means politics,
stupidity, ignorance, and the enforcement of ignorance. As a
parallel, consider the Earthly Christian sect called the 'Seventh Day
Adventists'. This group, despite all the overwhelming evidence,
despite all the carbon dating, the existence of multi-million year
old canyons and colliding tectonic plates, magnetic patterns in rock
and chemical isotopes, despite all of these things and countless
more proofs of the true
age of the earth...some 4.5 billion years....absolutely cling to the
ignorant yet utterly firm belief that the earth is a little over 4000
years old. They have an exact figure. It's based on counting the
'begats' in the bible.

They
are willing to die for this belief, as is the wont of the fanatic,
and occsionally
have fought
to have it made law, as
part of the horrifically ignorant, oxymoronic mess called 'Creation Science'.
They listen to no reason, no logic, no proof, because they can write
obvious evidence off as a 'delusion from Satan'. The real world, to
them, is a lie caused by a mythical devil. These are real people, and
there are a LOT of them.

And
such insanity is only the tip of the iceberg on our earth....I could
go into the 'Christian Scientists' (an oxymoron, to be sure) who
still cling to the belief that all disease is not caused by microbes
but by satan, and often die refusing medical treatment...and so many
more. The humans of Gryrnu are no different. Authority, which they
have been trained to accept
without question from birth, tells them the truth, and despite all
obvious evidence, they believe it. Anything that shows this belief to
be false, is a lie, a delusion, and conspiracy against the good,
right, and true system.

To
further enhance this effect, cultural binders, like Makineri and
Muri and others, have a licence to kill....just like a medieval
witchfinder, or an enforcer for the Inquisition under the Pope. Kill
on sight, any deviant spreading lies. On Grynu, though, they do not
require the step of torture and confession....they simply eliminate
dissent efficiently, instantly.

Thus,
the bright people who do figure out there is something wrong by
fighting their beliefs, tend to be bright enough to realize that life
means keeping their mouth shut.

This,
by the way, is exactly how Nazi Germany managed to run their
extermination camps without dissent...the majority of Germans really
would have not approved at all...they would have rebelled in
horror...but they knew that to do so meant death...and
worse...rejecting authority. Perceived
authority is very powerful in primate species like humans.
Unbelievably powerful. So the German citizens simply...ignored,
failed to think about...why the crematoriums were running day and night.

Not
unlike how America and Canada dealt with the concentration camps for
Japanese citizens here in North America.

People....are
people, and as a mass, they are easily led, mostly mindless, and
follow authority like sheep, even if the authority is ignorant, evil
beyond comprehension, or just plain ridiculous.

Since
this happens in our abundant world...imagine the effect in a harsh
environment. Fanatical adherence
to the 'proper' beliefs.

"Is
anything before Octorber 2nd 2000 C.E. actually cannon?
I just realized that Lupiko COULDN'T very well be remeniscing with
Uni-kun about his earlier trials in Visco city because Lupiko wasn't
there when said trials were occuring, and Uni-kun can't talk." -Warpzone32

Yes.
That IS interesting, isn't it?

There
have always been three explanations. Nobody -on the forums- has
asked about this before. It's neat that someone finally has!

Explanation
One:

It
has been hinted that Lupiko has some sort of Wiccan-taught
telepathic and clairavoyant 'Gift', and that her mother had this too.
Supposedly, she gets 'impressions' from Uni, and sometimes sees
entire event flashbacks in her dreams as she sleeps with Uni close to her.

Explanation
Two:

The
so-called 'telepathy' is actually a chemical communication that is
transmitted through physical contact. Psychotropic chemicals exude
from the outer membrane of Uni, and affect the neurotransmitters in
Lupiko's brain. Possible evidence for this comes from two sources:
one, the time that Uni lost cohesion and became acidic, burning
Lupiko's hands, and two, the lucid dream experience that Chou had
with Kay-Wai, demonstrating some form of direct communication is possible.

Explanation
Three:

Yasui
and Millian, who regularly deal with problems (dangerous creatures
coming too close to the Human lands) in the region of Visco City,
doubtless also have trade with the sapient Jellies that live there.
They could easily have learned about the adventures of Uni from the
Jellies...who were so impacted as to have their entire city
destroyed....and then passed that information on to Lupiko, after the
time that Uni was rescued, but before the day where Lupiko and Uni
recount Uni's story.

So,
which explanation is true?

The
point is, that all of them are, or are not, equally. Since it is
clear that we are never told, beyond doubt, whether Uni came about as
a result of eating Deifica flowers, or if Uni was truly 'visited'
upon by a Holy Unicorn of myth and legend, we can assume that what
Lupiko thinks she knows about Uni is her best understanding, but
cannot be 100% certain. Uni seems to believe certain things, but we,
the readers, cannot know absolutely.

Consider
your own memories of events. You may be certain, emotionally of any
event that has ever happened to you, but if no documents exist, if no
proof remains, then, rationally, you cannot be 100% sure any given
thing ever happened. Memory is very faulty, and can easily be
influenced and modified later in time. Indeed, recent studies have
shown that the very act of remembering something alters the memory
each time it is recalled. Sometimes the best we can do is reconstruct
the most logical possibility. This is what Chou did, to decide that
Uni was born of the chemistry of mutant flowers, rather than dubious
spiritual causes.

But
sometimes, what seems logical is not always the correct answer, either.

The
events prior to October are canon, certainly. But none of us are
privy to exactly what those events -actually- were. That is the truly
curious element in all of this. We as the readers are not permitted
to be certain that the events we have been given is any more accurate
than the thoughts and beliefs of the characters recounting them.

"How
do earthly plants manage to grow in a universe of
cold lumonic light?"

The
sun and moon orbs, Ashun and Velu, are cold, which is to say they
are the ambient temperature of the Tryslmaistan Universe, which is
normally, by the way, precisely 74.3 degrees Fahrenheit (23.50
degrees Celsius, or 296.65 Kelvin). I say normally, because the
cosmos-spanning superstorm has raised the temperature a bit...not in
any way noticibly to Humans or Jelliform life, but significantly in
that it could happen at all. The Stormfall has freed a great deal of
bound energy, and continues to do so, as more and more of the
universe is affected. Eventually, as the Storm reaches Totality, the
entire Tryslmaistan Universe will be several degrees warmer than it
normally should be. However, after Totality, the ambient temoperature
will gradually fall back to the normal level, thanks to the
anentropic mechanisms of the Tryslmaistan cosmos.

Because
the orbs generate cold Lumonic light, which they do because they are
made of the elements Solarine (Day Orb Ashun) and Noctrium (Night Orb
Velu), the light cannot feed plants the same way that it does on
earth. Lumonic light is very different that the photons of the Mundis
universe, as has been explored elsewhere, and so cannot contribute to
photosynthesis in imported, transcribed earthly plants. Lumonic light
is also useless for the manufacturing of Vitamin D within human skin,
as well, which is why Pig milk is so desperately vital to the
survival of humans in the Tryslmaistan universe.

How
do terrestrial plants then grow in such an alien universe..indeed
how do native plant equivalents get their vital energy?

On
our Earth, light, photons, are the foundation of all life. All that
lives and grows and is exists only because of our sun, and the plants
that convert the energy from sunlight into simple sugars that
ultimately power almost all of the life on the planet.

In
the Tryslmaistan Universe, the foundation of all life is Electanic
Charge. The same energy that ultimately creates Shatterel, that is
converted into Lumons by the constant decay and reformation of the
Variable-Protean Elements (the equivalent of radioactive elements on
our periodic table) such as Noctrium (21 on the Triotic Table) and
Solarine (63 on the Triotic Table), and which ultimately cycles in a
anentropic perpetual loop within the universe as a whole, also forms
the basis of all life.

Electanic
Charge affects Triotic elements in various ways, and permeates the
whole of the cosmos. One element that Electanic Charge affects in an
interesting manner is tanogrium (29 on the Triotic Table), the
nearest equivalent of the earthly element magnesium. Now Clorophyll,
the molecule in plants that converts sunlight to chemical energy, is
functionally identical in structure to hemoglobin, the molecule in
blood that carries oxygen, save for one atom, in the center of the
molecule...in hemoglobin that atom is iron, and in clorophyll it is
magnesium. It is therefore no wonder that earthly plants also require
Vlax in their life functions.

In
normal clorophyll, the magnesium atom allows the surrounding
molecule to act as a mechanical agent that uses solar power, which
excites the electrons in the atom to gain and lose energy levels,
which is communicted to the rest of the molecule, which in turn, like
a geared atomic machine, moves about and sews together the atoms that
ultimately make up the plant sugars that power most life.

In
the transmuted, transmogrified earthly plants within Tryslmaistan,
magnesium is replaced with tanogrium, the closest analogue to
magnesium, and this ultimately changes how plants get their energy.
Tanogrium operates much like a piece of quartz in an electric
field...it pulses, over and over. The traton constantly changes
planar shape in the constant presence of the shifting Electanic
Fields of the cosmos, and in this manner communicates the energy to
the neo-clorophyll within the eartly plants, stitching together
neo-sugars, made of tratonic elements, which in turn power all the
stranded eartly life within the Tryslmaistan universe.

Now,
an obvious extention of this fact is that, since plants do not need
light, they can be grown anywhere, even underground, in absolute
darkness, with equal effect to growing them above ground. However, it
should be noted, that while this is interesting, it is
impractical...since growing things on open wide fields is much easier
that digging our enourmous caverns just to prove that a dark
greenhouse will work. Also there is the issue of rain being
desirable. But...if they had reason to, the humans of Gryrnu could
grow plants in the dark.

The
question is what constitutes as "Dead" for crystal
life. Do they have some sort of internal circulatory system that
keeps them fuctioning? If not, then what would stop, say... one side
of a scut scut from continuing to try to regrow after Yasui had cut
it clean in half on a beach picnic? -croax

The
basic structure of all the crystal life in the Tryslmaistan universe
follows a common pattern....a semi-liquid, protean interior, enclosed
by one or more layers of boundary to the outside world. In the
Jelliform life, such as Slimes and Sapient Jellies, the boundary is
exceedingly elastic and capable of tremendous deformation, whereas in
the Crystalloform life, such as the Scut-Scuts and Teal
Scizzortigers, the boundary is a tough, hardened, relatively
inflexible shell.

I
should make a note about the nature of crystalline materials in the
Tryslmaistan Universe first.

On
earth, most crystals are hard, Very hard. Rocklike, to be more to
the point. While there are such matters as liquid crystals in a
LCD...a Liquid Crystal Display, and so forth, when we think of
crystals, we think of hard, heavy objects.

Tryslmaistan
crystal is not like that. In all cases, crystalline matter in the
Tryslmaistan universe is fluidic...it is flexible, like rubber.
Whether the enourmous crystals that make up the core of a Worldplate,
the shell of a Scizzortiger, or the plates of a Spradic Disk Tree,
all are non-brittle. Truly brittle things are not possible in the
Tryslmaistan universe...not in the sense that we define brittle or rigid.

Anything
in the Tryslmaistan universe can bend, if enough force is applied,
in a gradual enough way. Sudden force can cause breaking, even
shattering, in much the same way that water will shatter like glass
(if you film water with a very fast camera, and slow an impact with a
sheet of falling water down, you will see that the water
shatters...like glass does...before turning into rounded drops). This
is why Shatterel will snap and break and crumble, why the hull of a
Scizzortiger can fracture, and so forth.

If,
however, you were to hold a piece of broken Scizzortiger hull in
your hands, it would have the feeling of a kind of plastic, it would
feel as though, if you were superhuman, and very slow, you could
almost bend the thing with your hands. Imagine the way a bowling ball
feels, or some other high impact plastic is, and this is what the
harder crystal material on Gryrnu would feel like. It does not feel
ultra hard, like quartz on earth. There is that barely definable
sensation of flexability to all crystal on Gryrnu. This explains, as
an aside, how such improbable beasts can walk about and not break
themselves from the constant impacts, from microfractures in their
shells....they are not brittle like earthly crystalline matter. The
have a certain amount of 'give', and compression to them.

Some
Tryslmaistan crystals are quite soft...like the Gloms used for
lighting, which are like soft, moldable rubber art eraser, or stiff
chewing gum. Some are as soft and bouncy as Jello, yet possessed of
incredible strength and durability...not unlike silicone jels on
earth. And some are nearly liquid. This explains, for those that have
asked, why the sand that covers a Worldplate does not slice open
Human feet...it is not like crushed glass. It is no more dangerous
than earthly sand, despite lacking the rounded, weathered edges to
the grains. Sharp points do not always mean harm in the Tryslmaistan
universe. Unless, of course, the sharp point is on an advancing
Crystal Basilisk!

Tryslmaistan
life, to return to the primary topic, shares not only an outer hull,
or barrier, but also a common mechanism for the interior semifluidic
matter within: distributed, ad hoc organs.

In
earthly life, we have a set of organs, and these organs do various
tasks, but always stay what they are...a stomach is a stomach, and
never a heart, for example. Tryslmaistan life generates organs on a
need-only basis. It can do this, because free energy is much more
abundant, so a system which would be deathly inefficient in our own
entropic universe of Mundis is perfectly fine in the Steady-State
universe of Tryslmaistan.

Jellies
and Scut-Scuts all form the organs they need only as they need them.
They have no single 'brain', or 'heart' or 'liver' even then, rather
any formed organ is distributed throughout the constantly changing,
oozing internal biomass within a creature. When a Scut-Scut needs
tendrils to engulf a Tumbledice, it grows them from internal biomass,
repurposing whatever was there before. When food is brought inside
the shell of some crystal beast, an inclusion space...just like a
sapient Jelly can make to hold loose change within....is formed, then
repurposed into a digestion chamber. When the food is digested,
processing organs drift into existence and dissolve when no longer
needed. Later, a waste chamber will form, and supporting organs as
well, and so forth.

The
internal, semiliquid biomass is in constant motion, churning and
forming and unforming organs, or distributing nutrients. In effect,
the life of the Tryslmaistan universe is not unlike a diverse array
of ways to put a gigantic ameoba inside a box or a bag, and then see
what happens. But even an earthly ameoba has permanent
organs....Tryslmaistan life does not.

Stab
a sapient Jelly with a pike and you annoy him. You hurt him a little
too, in that his life processes have been interrupted, some biomass
may leak out, and he must then heal up the hole. But cleft a sapient
Jelly in twain, and you kill him...the liquid biomass all pours out,
and it has not the ability to pull the creatures boundary halves
together again. Make a big enough hole, and the Jelly will also die,
if enough biomass is lost. You can bleed a jelly to death, in effect.

Clubbing
a Jelly will also kill it, but it takes a long time, and much
clubbing. How does impact kill a Jelly? By constantly interrupting,
or even shattering forming organs in the biomass so disruptively that
eventually life functions cease as toxins and waste accumulates to
critical levels, or the biomass starves for lack of the ability to
process the resourses swirling within it. A hard enough impact could
also break open the outer boundary, much as a water balloon splits open.

For
the harder, shelled creatures, such as the Scut-Scut and the
Scizzortiger, the same is true, for the same reasons...make a big
enough hole, or break or crumble the hull, and the creature looses
the liquid biomass inside the outer barrier. Without the barrier, the
liquid mass has no framework to build within, no scaffolding on which
to form organs, and no protection from the gasses of the atmosphere
which change the Charge balances of the biomass, leaking electanic
Charge to the air, draining the very wellspring of life.

Even
the drippy, puddle-like Slimes are nonetheless bounded by a very,
very soft, very, very elastic boundary layer to seal in electanic
Charge, nutrients, and moisture. Moisture is another issue for such
life....the desert is very dry, and loss of moisture will kill.

A
crystalloid creature is 'dead' in exactly the same way that an
earthly creature is 'dead'...when the organs can no longer function
(or form!), when there is no more activity in the molecular machinery
of life. The life of Tryslmaistan is curious, but also fragile too,
just as it is on earth.

What
does the Gryrnese
language (Talcryl) sound like? I mean... gee.. I guess thats a hard
question to ask :p is it hard and full of consonant like Russian or
German? is it a flowing like Elven? -phatcat

Talcryl
sounds like a bit of a mishmash of world languages, dominated just a
bit by Japanese, Korean, and Finnish. You can find bits of most of
the earth's cultures in the sounds of Talcryl. This is reasonable,
considering that the language was indeed formed through the collision
of multiple cultures, all at the same time.

A
typical sentence in Talcryl would be:

"Kotranin
warikas en 'Iniyuyisa' dosu ta."

The
pronounciation would be:

"Koh-trah-neen
Wah-ree-kass EIN Een-ee-Yoo-Yee-Sah Doh-tsu TAY" Which
basically amounts to saying the equivalent of "here is an
explanation or understanding of mathematics for you".

To
greet someone in Talcryl, you would say

"Suumi
Paivaa!"

Which
is said "Soo-OOh-Mee PIE-Vah". It
basically is an all purpose greeting, which means, ultimately,
"Happy Hello!" Alternate Kai-Wai uses this greeting a
lot...he is really saying "Suumi Paivaa", I just translate.

To
say Thank You in Talcryllic, you might say Daedan!
if you were in a hurry "Day-dahn"....or if you were being
more polite, you might say Kamsa
hamnidaa!
which is said "Kahm-sah Hahm-NEE-dah"

To
say 'Good-by', you might say Gurdos
Silbernan!
"Goor-dahs Sill-bear-nan!" or even Zae
Zaan!
"Zay Zhan" if you were in a hurry.

As
for the accent and rhythm of the language, well...

The
best I can do is to offer that it sounds somewhat
Easter-European....not to far distant from a true (not a Hollywood)
Translvanian accent with a touch of Japanese and Korean sounds tossed
in. Imagine the accent affected by the Babylon 5 actor Peter
Jurassic, who played Lando the Centauri ambassador blended with the
sound of your favorite Japanese voice actor in an anime. More or less that.

Slimes...
How do they relate to Jellys, I know they
preform some kind of service in Jelly Citys, as we can see in one Alt
Strip they can be called to requesting Pools or pods, and Jellys give
them orders, But to do What? I think they build and repair the
city, but they must do so much more, Please Miss Reitz, can you fill
us in on the "Secret Life of Slimes? -Moriarty

Slimes
perform many functions in Jelly cities. On Gryrnu...the last Gryrnu
our story just left....the Slimes were slaves, forced to work against
their will or choice. Why? Because the Jellies there had been very
strongly affected by the domination of the humans.

Unconquered
Jellese and Slimes live more equitably, and Slimes, despite being
greatly at the mercy of the Jellese in terms of both power and
intelligence, are treated reverently. In proper Jellese cities, as we
shall see in time, Jellies do not bark orders at Slimes...they invoke
their aid with prayers. The cramped requesting pools we have seen in
the past are instead the Fountains Of Assistance.

In
the uncorrupted Jellese world, everything is sacred, spiritual.
Everything to its place.

Even
so, bottom line, the Slimes do most of the work. They repair the
cities and construct them too, because Slimes are formless living
chemical factories. They produce the glassine material of Jellese
cities, following the design of the more intelligent Jellies. They
process wastes into building materials, digesting matter and
converting it. Slimes drive some Jellese devices with their churning,
and they convey resources inside their bodies, to be delivered where required.

Consider
the Slimes of Jellese cities as formless blobs of liquid life that
can flow over a building and repair it, dissolve food and flow
through pipes to your 'table' where they disgorge it into your
'bowl', live in your toilet and dissolve your waste only to convert
it into useful materials, wall repairs, or even extruded furniture
and tools. They can work individually, or in cooperation to create
structures and devices, if the design can be communicated to them.

Communication
with Slimes is through direct 'neurochemical linking'...Slimes
cannot talk and sound is irrelevant to them. So, a Jelly will dip a
pseudopod into a Slime and effectively think chemicals into them,
describing the plan for...a bathtub, say, or a building, or a boat.
The Slimes then work like bees to make these things, swarming and
squirming and extruding.

So,
ultimately, Slimes are worker drones...in Native cities they at
least get reverance and honor for this, but they still do it, and
they really have no choice. Being, ultimately, not totally mindless
pools of living goo, though close to it, Slimes are easy prey for any
native crystal beasts, who love to dine on the chemical-rich Slimes
above all else. Slimes are the bottom of the Tryslmaistan 'animal'
food chain, just above crystal plants. In the city, Slimes are
protected by the Jellies who design walls and various simple defences
that benefit both the Slimes and the Jellies. They do depend on each
other, and need each other.

If
a Jelly can create organs at will, and obviously
psuedopods, what's stopping a jelly from making, let's say...ten or
so eyes? Why do all they all have TWO eyes? If it's a different
biological set up...different mental process...and it's obviously not
to look like humans, because unconquered jellys have two eyes as
well... -El Juno

Vision
takes a lot of processing power... in most land mammals on earth,
vision takes up a good 40% minimum of brain space...us humans
included. Nearly half of your brain just to process the input of two
eyes. And the brain sucks up more oxygen and resources than any other
organ...it seriously burns fuel.

Tryslmaistan
may be a Steady State universe, but it is not an extropic
universe... there is an overall anentropic force, but only to the
point of balance. Thus, life forms do have to worry about their own
biological energy budgets. Granted, the budgets are very much more
generous than here on Mundis Earth...but the Jellese already use most
of that bonus on the incredible ability to form complex organs on the
fly, as well as pseudopods as needed. A Jelly would not be able to
igest and process enough energy in Mundis to hope to do that.
Tryslmaistan Jellies could not live in our universe. The physics are
all wrong.

Thus,
with all of that happening, there is a limit to energy, and that
limit is why Jellies have just enough eyespots for binocular vision.

However,
you will note that the solid-hulled, more rigid crystal beasts have
any number of eyes. Because their structures are more rigid, they
save on energy, and thus can afford more extravagant optics.

I
know that Chou is now a Crystal Hybrid, Red and
White life, but could she, still have a child, or is that now
impossible for her? -Moriarty

If
Chou were to attempt to have a child, it would imbalance the
symbiosis within her. The crystal basilisk side of her is very
aggressive, and will take every opportunity to gain more ground. This
is why, since Chou's accident, she is a little different, a little
colder and more calculating.

A
human fetus is seperated to an amazing degree from the mother during
growth in the womb. The Placenta acts as a buffer, a barrier, that
seoerates the parasitic child from the host mother. This is why a
mother with, say, AIDS, can still birth a healthy, non HIV child. The
blood never mixes, and if the birth process is ultra clean, and no
blood gets into the baby, they baby can survive, despite the doom of
the mother.

This
seperation is the problem. If Chou had a child, the fetus would be
just thusly isolated from her system. It would have no 'uni-factor',
and would present a fresh, utterly available target for the tiny
crystalloid 'mesomachines' in her body to first infect the placenta,
then to burrow into the fetus itself.

Then,
the scene from Alien would eventually play out, as a baby Crystal
Basilisk rippped its way out of Chou and stalked off. The crystal
spoor would devour any child inside her, then kill her getting out of
her body.

Chou,
for this reason -if there was technology for such things- could
never give blood. Fortunately, the Gryrnese have no ability to deal
with a blood bank, or giving blood, so this never will occur. The
same result would occur as being infected by a Basilisk.

This
is why Chou can never dare to have a child...and she is bright
enough to reason this out.

Moriarty
Asks:

1.The
Structure of the Government, The Ranks and
levels in it, and how one comes to these ranks, and what is the job
of each rank and level. Ie how the Council works, and such

This
is the hierarchy of the Gryrnese Government:(Note,
it is possible to serve in several positions at the same time)

The
Governmental Council Of Gryrnu
-3 members + many support staff(Thilia
Lilinffylst,
Waen Pahworzu, and Rei Naxela were the
Council of the time of our story)

The Governmental Departments:

The
Department Of Cultural Affairs

-Cultural
Binders (Makineri and Muri were in this!)

-Cultural
Oversite Committees

-Cultural
Enforcement Officers

-The
Ministry Of Indoctrination (Thilia also served this too)

-Wiccan Academic Committee

-Alchemist Academic Committee

-Colony
Project Special Corps (covert ops! Wai-Wai is in here!)

The
Department Of Defence
(Commander Pho heads this! He is the top
dog!)

3.
Information on the Mail, Police, Fire department. Are There Cops in Grynu?

Mail
is handled by the Service Gear. Fighting fires is done by volunteer
firefighters supported with state funds. Police work is done by The
Gryrnese Militia, who operate more like police, than an army.

4.
Information on the sewers and the "Compost" that Ive heard
mentioned in a few comics.

Sewers
and plumbing is handled by the Service Gear, Compost is the work of
The Circle Of Agriculture. Plumbing is only for the city, and the
largest compost facility is the 'Mere' of Ponsbury.

On
the nature
of light... since we know lumons don't carry
significant amounts of energy, or trigger chemical reactions the way
photons do... how do people see? How are lumons even detectable? They
must have *some* interaction where they impart some level of energy
to either matter or charge, else, from the perspective of the hunks
of matter we are, lumons might as well not be there. Obviously this
isn't the case. -Waismulo

Lumons
excite the retina indirectly, rather than by the channels light
-photons- normally use.

Lumons
can be re-angled, bent in effect, by interacting with the traton
that stands in for phosphorus. Lumon have various odd interactions
with a number of elements, in point of fact, changing states in these
elements. State changes are kind of like having a switch or a
polarity flipped. The traton will have its innate behavior modified.

Following
this, a particular traton, a doride element called Paspartine, acts
like a capacitor, in that it begins absorbing ambient electanic
charge...in effect, the Lumon 'flips the bozo bit' on the traton and
alters its behavior. Paspartine, once stoked with electans, reaches a
critical threshold called the 'electanic capacitance threshold'
(ofddly enough) and discharges all of the temporarily pooled electans
at once in a burst. Electans, or 'Tryslmeric Charge' are the force
that powers life in the Tryslmaistan universe, as we know.

When
this burst of electans happens in the phosphene-like tratonic
molecules inside the rods and cones of an eye, the result stimulates
the cell to send a signal.

So,
humans and other red life cannot see lumons, but they can see the
passing of lumons as they interact with Paspartine in their rods and
cones. This indirect action ultimately provides the effect, if not
the reality, of lumonic vision.

However,
it should be noted that this also means that humans do not see
colors in the same way that we do on earth. Because this form of
vision has somewhat different rules than we are used to, the 'look'
of the Tryslmaistan universe can only be approximated by me. If you
or I were suddenly tossed into the Tryslmaistan universe, and all of
our atoms inevitably converted into equivalent tratons, we would wake
up from this shock to a world that appeared maddeningly alien. Colors
would not be correct, everything would appear strangely 'edged' like
the popular 'cel-shading effect used in video games like 'Jet Set
Radio' or 'Cel Damage'....almost like having black lines around
edges. Colors would appear either muted, shimmery, glowing without
light, overexposed, or strangely tinted in incorrect ways. Everything
would have a slightly wavery appearance that would be difficult to
describe, and it would be painful at first to focus the eyes. It
would take many generations of humanity to adapt entirely to this.

The
First People may well have imagined that they were in hell, or had
gone to Aelfheim, or had been sent to limbo. Some would surely have
been driven mad. But, given enough time, people can get used to anything.

In
a way, the black-and-white nature of the comic is not entirely
inappropriate for representing Tryslmaistan. Color exists, because
the brain calculates color as much as it 'sees' it, but it is not
quite right, and is overwhelmed by the strangeness overall.

What
do the Jellese eat? -Croax

The
Slimes, and their cousins the Jellese, eat a variety of native
crystalloid 'plants' and 'animals'. They hunt for food, gather
glassine plants, and also cultivate crops too...though the crops are
not grown on land, but in large spherical 'jars'.

All
of this material...whether it is the interior goo from a TandleSpear
or a purple Knifecarpet, or even something a big as a
Razorchest Clampstrider or our old friend the Teal Scizzortiger, is
generally first processed by the Slimes. Jellese can absorb such
internal gloop directly, but the Slimes make everything much
more...palatable (if the jellese had palates, which they don't).

First,
fine dining and feasts.

Slimes
are the Iron Chefs of the Crystal world, and a Slime will be poured
into a large bowl-like Chowfountain and be supplied with a carefully
chosen selection of ingredients that the Jellese would consider a
good and...tasty....mix. The Slime, or sometimes Slimes, dissolve the
food stuffs and begin their unique chemical transformations. In
effect, one could say that the crystal liquid Slimes mingle with the
food, prepariing and 'cooking'...chemically altering....it from
within, as part of it. Some Slimes are more revered than others, and
some are considered to be the equivalent of 'great chefs' while
others are just considered marginally better than eating food raw.

After
the Slime's work is done, the Slime extricates itself from the
mixture, leaving behind a finished work of cuisine. Basically, a big
bowl of chemically alterered and blended goo...a soup....cooked and
mixed from the inside out.

Individual
diningtubs are filled with the contents of the Chowfountain, and the
Jellese enter these and absorb the 'soup'...not unlike the scenes of
Uni enjoying absorbing tea in Lupiko's washtub. Jellies may have
their own favorite personal diningtubs, or use a 'restaurant style' tub.

This
is Jellese fine dining.

For
Jellese fast food, a Jelly need only go to any Requesting Pool...or
the equivalent in pre-conquered Jelly cities, and ultimately have a
circulating Slime provide a stream of quick, predigested nutrition
for the Jelly to lob a pseudopod into and suck up.

The
Slimes, intimate to all food production within a Jellese city,
actually get first pick of the nutrition, and essentially live
constantly supplied with more food than they could ever use.
City-dwelling Slimes (which means almost all Slimes) do not have to
gather their own food, and thus have a benefit, and the Jellese, who
lack such powerful chemical processing abilities to break down and
alter food, benefit as well.

KayWai
and Uni both are mutants, changed by having successfully integrated
earthly materials as part of their permanent make up. While evolution
and change are not normally possible in the Tryslmaistan universe,
the matter from our own world nonetheless brings with it something
extra....a capacity for change. That capacity is very hard to achieve
within the Steady State cosmos of Tryslmaistan, but events can very
rarely so conspire as to make it evident.

KayWai
and Uni are effectively as much half-creatures, bridging the gap
between crystal life and earth life as Chou is. All three of these
beings are chimeras, part crystal life, and part earthly life. And
both require some elements of both types of life in their diet, to
varying degrees.

Chou
can go a very long time before needing to ingest any crystalloid
matter, and indeed, even bits of sand in her food can be enough.
KayWai and Uni can love for a very, very long time off of Red and
Green life, terrestrial life based food, but eventually, they will
need some nutrients that they cannot get, nutrients found only in the
sand and the crystal biology of Tryslmaistan.

Fortunately,
as we have seen, some crystal life was brought on the Arks to allow
the operation of the Electanic Chadometer, the device that allows
early detection of approaching Veils.

A
little nibble here and there is all any of the three would need.

Alright,
this has been bugging me for a while. We've heard
of vlax mutated giants (were they giants or goblins/ogres or
something?), halflings, and elves. However, in the character
information for Lupiko, it says she has some Faery blood thats not
talked about. May I inquire what a faery looks like in UJ? Or is this
just outdated information.

It
seems interesting because she also has a faery harp or something
right? -Croax

The
'Faeries' were a group of Humans...composed of so-called 'Elves',
'Humans' and 'Ogres'...the various Vlax-altered family lines...who, a
half a century ago, decided to...experiment with Vlax in unusual ways.

This
was the closest thing to a '1960's' style Hippy revolution that the
Gryrnese culture ever saw, and it actually lasted a surprisingly long
time before it was utterly quashed. A full two generations.

The
'Faeries' as they came to be called, created a covert subculture
within Gryrnese society. They made use of Deifica to have religious
visions, and practiced a kind of cult of love and pleasure that
included a total rejection of the seperations between Wiccan and
Alchemist Factions. To the outside socieity, the Faeries appeared
perfectly normal...they tried to follow the rules, appear normal, act
normal, and espouse socially accepted opinions. In secret, they took
great forbidden pleasure in mocking the entirety of Gryrnese culture,
and felt compelled by a higher power and a 'deeper mystery', much of
which came from overindulgence in Deifica.

Total
sexual freedom was one of their practices, and orgies were common.
Music and dance were intermingled with wild sex. The Faeries belived
that they could breed a superior, Goddess-like race of man through
indescriminate (but spiritual) sex and the use of special 'potions'
during the gestation of a child. These 'potions' were cooked and
chemically altered Vlax concoctions that also contained a great deal
of the mind altering Deifica, as well as some chemicals taken from
crystal life.

The
result of this was the birth of babies that had some very unusual
characteristics...they were unnaturally thin, incredibly wispy and
frail, shock white in color, and possessed of shock white hair that
looked for all the world like a dandilon puff. The children had gold
eyes, and moved with a very strange gait, fluid and almost dance-like.

The
parents of Faerie children tried very hard to hide their
unique...characteristics. They dyed their hair, dressed them in
bulky, oversize clothing, and tried to teach them to act like their
peers. For a while, this worked, more or less, but the Faerie
children also seemed to...think...differently than other people, even
their own parents.

Eventually
the whole secret movement was discovered when the Faery-folk were
incautious about holding an outdoor gathering in the desert. Charges
were brought, then dropped, then brought again. The Books of Myrmil
simply had nothing to say on this sort of thing, other than perhaps
issues of breeding, and those rules primarily applied to the
colonization period, not centuries later. Although the actions of the
Faeries could not be deemed truly illegal...except for pubic sex
issues and marriage issues...there was no legal basis to execute
either the parents, or the children. However, it was agreed by the
Council of the time that the whole thing was at the least terribly
unsavory and wrong, and therefore must be stopped for the public good.

The
Faeries were abolished, and covert operations were put in place to
prevent such underground movements from gaining momentum ever again.
The Faerie children managed to find lovers, for they did have an
unearthly beauty about them, and unlike the usual, non-transmissable
mutations caused by Vlax, somehow some aspect of the genes of the
Faeries were permanently altered. This, quite to the surprise of
everyone, caused some of the Faerie traits to be passed on to offspring.

By
demonstrating that this was even possible, family lines such as the
'Elves' and the 'Ogres' demanded research into what had happened,
since to produce the unique qualities and appearance of these family
lines requires specific Vlax use during every pregnancy and every
child's early development. Unless this is done, according to family
traditions, all children would simply appear as stock normal Human,
and the power of the 'Racial Clans' would be lost. A permanent
solution to produce transmissible unhuman characteristics would
solidify the Racial Clans forever.

Such
research was not to be, however, because other things, bigger
things, were far more important to the Council, such as the
approaching Stormfall...

How,
exactly, do Jellies reproduce? -Various people

HOT
(well, more accurately, ambient temperature) JELLY SEX!!!

Tryslmaistan
Jellies, as well as many other creatures in the Tryslmaistan cosmos,
reproduce by means of spores.

When
sapient Jellese people have sex, as they become the equivalent of
aroused, they manufacture temporary reproductive organs within their
bodies. Males create Spore Bulbs, and females create Uteroid Sacs.
When forplay, which involves various configurations of pseudopods and
the resultant probinbg of each other's biomass reaches a peak, the
outer membrane of the Jellies begins to alter. The membrane becomes
sticky, and semi-liquid, and is covered in a thin sheen of acid. The
acid stings the Jellies slightly, which creates a reaction that
brings the reproductive organs to the surface from deep inside, where
they have been forming.

The
male Jelly produces multiple eruptions of large boil, or pimple-like
lumps, which are the protrusion of the Spore Bulbs. In the female,
hollow circular funnels open up, with wide, sloping openings leading
down into the Uteroid Sacs. Eventually the edges of these funnels
raise up, above the surface of the female Jelly and appear like the
open end of a tuba, flairing out in a circle.

Locked
in sticky pseudopodal embrace, stinging in excitement from the acid
burning each other's membranes, finally the males Spore Bulbs will
burst, ejecting a vaporized cloud of a powerful chemical base mixed
with reproductive spores.

If
enough of the material falls into one or more female Sac Funnels, it
is transported by rapid, rippling contractions down into the Uteroid
Sac. Along the way, the base counteracts the surface acid, and
protects the spores.

Inside
the Uteroid Sac, the spores begin to collect. If there are enough
spores, reaching a specific critical level, the female will sense the
chemical density and automatically release an activation enzyme
within the Sac. This causes the spores to burst, and begin growing
into a tangle of living threads. As the threads grow, they also
wriggle, and this action causes the body of the female to inject
nutrients into the Sac, to feed what is rapidly becoming a Jelly embryo.

At
this point, a chemical signal is released, and the impregnated Sac
will close itself off from the outside. Becoming an Inclusion, the
Sac remains affixed to the outer membrane of the Jelly, which begins
to thicken and harden slightly. This makes the creation of pseudopods
much more difficult for the female, but acts as a kind of light armor
to protect the Sacs, which are now, with growing fetal Jellies inside
them, termed Pods.

Inside
the Fetus Pods. the writhing threads begin to form a ball, and the
ball begins to differentiate between an outer layer of thich threads,
and an inner core of thin threads. The outer layer becomes a
membrane, and the inner core melts into internal biomass.

At
this point the Pod, being semi-transparent, will show the outlines
of a little ball, the fetal Jelly. From conception to this point
takes about three weeks.

At
two months, Tryslmaistan time, the fetal Jellies will begin to
display eye strips. The eye strips occasionally sink into the
interior of the fetal Jelly, and then surface again, a cycle which
follows resting and rapid growth phases.

Color
begins to become obvious around four months. The color of a fetal
Jelly is determined by the balance of acid versus base at the moment
of conception...the more acid, the closer to what we would call the
'violet' end of the spectrum, and the more base, the closer to the
'red'. Halfway, the average, is various shades of 'green', which is
why so many Jellies are depicted as green.

The
Jellese have their own little myths and stories about what the
colors mean, and among them are the whimsey that a greenish Jelly
will be normal or average of temperment, a reddish Jelly will be
confident and regular in behavior, and Jellies that lean towards the
blue and violet range will be emotional and -for the Jellese anyway-
unpredictable. The equivalent of artistic, if you will. No Jellese is
truly unpredictable in any way that would mean anything to a Human,
of course.

During
pregnancy, the female Jelly will become large, almost twice her
original size, and because of her thickened outer membrane, will find
manipulating objects more difficult. Near the top of her dome, will
be found one or more teardrop-shaped Fetus Pods, inside of which the
small fetal Jellies can be seen rolling and spinning, or lying still.

When
a Jelly mother gives birth, the Fetal Pods swell a few days prior,
and the membrane of the mother becomes soft again. This permits the
mother to easily extend pseudopods, and form bowls, to catch the
newly born Jelly babies when the burst from their Sacs.

Immediately
mobile, the Jelly babies are eager to explore and move about,
requiring a great deal of attention.

The
Sacs on the mother are absorbed and disappear in a few days. Over
time, the mother loses her mass and returns to her pre-pregnancy
weight. After about thirty Tryslmaistan years, the female is capable
of becoming pregant again. Reproduction is slow, in a Steady-State universe.

A
Jellese infant takes about sixty years to reach sexual maturity. At
this time, the Jelly would be considered to be the equivalent of a teenager.

Jellese
engage in sex only rarely, but form very strong filial bonds that
commonly last a lifetime. These bonds, however, are not ritualized,
in the same manner as is the custom of many humans...there is no
Jellese 'marriage'. Jellese commonly share the care of infants, and
form trusted groups of adults who all collectively care for children.
Even so, a child and mother can always identify each other by taste,
which in the Jellese is a sense which covers every part of their body.

Baby
Jellese are born with a faint, partial memory already installed.
They have a basic grasp of many things even before they are born.
However, it takes many, many years for this encoded memory to
completely surface. By 10 years, basic language skills are in place.
By 30 years, the young Jelly will begin to have faint glimpses of
understanding of history, the basic patterns of life in the
Tryslmaistan universe. By 50 years, the Jelly child will have encoded
memories surface that involve more abstract concepts, such as the
beginnings of Jelly mysticism. By 70 years, the young adult Jellese
is already undegoing mental hardening, where ideas and information,
as well as the capacity for thought and reason become highly rigid
and unchanging. By 100 years, a Jelly is almost incapable of new
ideas, and can easily be rendered insane by the introduction of
something truly novel, such as, say, the landing of an alien force of
Humans from another universe who plan to destroy civilization and
claim the entire world as their own.

How
did the Tratonic Bomb that destroyed Myrmil
actually work? -Nemo

How
A Tratonic Detonation Device works:

Tratons,
unlike atoms, are not constructed of clouds of electrons around a
nucleus. A traton has no nucleus, in point of fact, and nothing that
is like an electron, or even an electan.

Tratons
are not unlike polyhedral shapes made out of polygonal planes of
intersecting energy. A traton can deform along these planes, and you
might call it an origami box of sorts.

Molecules,
in the Tryslmaistan cosmos, are composed of interlocking tratons,
and the bonds between tratons are like puzzle pieces fitting into
each other.

Now
these energy planes undergo, as does every form of matter in the
Tryslmaistan cosmos, a kind of entropy. They break down. Like
subtratonic shatterel, the energy planes can fragment, and the
fragments, depending on the number of sides, become one of the three
flavors of electans. In effect, all matter in Tryslmaistan is
inherently unstable, and pseudo-radioactive. This is not radiation
akin to the kinds in the Mundis universe, where we live, but it is analogous.

What
keeps all the matter in the entire Tryslmaistan cosmos from breaking
down are the Veils, which generate electanic Charge, and this effect
recrystallizes the energy planes of the tratons. You might imagine it
as though it were 'quantum rock-candy' forming.

But,
there is a potential danger, which can never happen normally, that
the anentropic recrystalization could go too far. In effect, that a
traton or a bunch of tratons, could become so 'perfect' for lack of a
better term for an anti-entropic state, that they exceed the
boundaries of solidness, the limits of physics. This is Extropic
Transcendence, and it is explosive, and it is dangerous, it is
getting not only something for nothing, it is getting a heck of a lot
of something for nothing in a blinding flash.

The
tratonic bomb that destroyed Myrmil used this principle. Three
carefully shaped pieces of utterly pure Chijimutite crystals were
arranged inside of a mechanized casing. The three pieces, originally
one whole piece, had been carefully divided with a single blow from
an impact, in much the same way that a diamond cutter can cleave a
diamond with a precisely calculated blow from a chisel. This was
important, because of an effect within the Tryslmaistan cosmos not
unlike that of the quantum mechanical concept of intertwined
particles in our own universe..the parts of the crystal possess a
kind of mutual 'spooky' connection.

Using
a special Anentropic Transducer, heat could be inverted to become
cold, freezing the crystals to nearly the lowest possible
temperature, the equivalent of 'Absolute Zero' for the Tryslmaistan
cosmos. The only remaining component was a mechanism to slam the
three halves together to form a sort of 'critical mass'. Key to this
was that the parts be placed back together in as exacting a
correspondence with how they were prior to being divided as possible,
ideally a perfect correspondence.

Now
this critical mass is not of the kind we speak of in an atomic bomb,
rather it is to allow for a final crystallization along the
previously broken planes of the divided Chijimutite crystal. At such
a low temperature, the crystal parts are nearly at extropic
criticality already, and brought back together, the natural, ambient
anentropic effect of the Veils is added to the mix...and that is the key.

Detonation
occurs because that last anentropic effect pushes the crystal past
the point of extropic transcendence, effectively going beyond the
limits of conventional Tryslmaistan physics in the same way that the
interior of a black hole, in our universe, is indescribable and
beyond our conventional physics. The analogy is not exact, but it
will do.

At
the moment of extropic transcendence, tratons inside the Chijimutite
recrystallize to form a 'more perfect than the original' form of the
original crystal. This violation causes a compound extropic effect,
and put simply, if entropy is the loss of potential energy to chaos
and heat, then extropy is the gain of potential energy creating order
and cold. Vast amounts of energy are suddenly bursting from an
effective nowhere, a 'virtual space', in the same way that our
quantum mechanics allows for 'virtual particles', and the result is,
one heck of a lot of stuff, and no room to put it in. Matter, coming
into existence, with no place to go, does not enter quietly.

The
Alchemists of Myrmil grievously underestimated the effect. It was
far more powerful than all but a very few even imagined, and the
result was cataclysmic.

Now
why Chijimutite, specifically? Because of all matter in the
Tryslmaistan universe, Chijimutite is the most exquisitely 'tuned' to
the effects of the anentropic flow from the Veils. Indeed it is this
flow that provide the energy that allows Chijimutite to have the
power to move, and to push or pull connected objects. With
Chijimutite, you literally get more energy out than you put in, a
small vibration, such as a specific tone of sound can result in a
contraction or expansion magnitudes greater in terms of energy. The
additional energy comes from the natural ambient flow from the Veils
that power the whole of the cosmos.

Myrmillian
Alchemists recognized this, and their science understood it, and
understood its potential, and ramifications.

Unfortunately,
they did not understand is well enough.

What
was this terrible tratonic like? It was small, about the size of a
soccer ball, with a base just big enough to support the freezing
mechanism. On the outside were cylindrical machines to push the
crystal parts into place. It would fit in the trunk of a car, easily,
yet it took out an Worldplate, and by extension, in due time, the
entire universe.

Why
do the Gryrnese use
a base
seven numerical system?

The
early humans, the First People, were a diverse mix, from many time
periods and cultures. Most of them came to the conclusion that they
had somehow ended up is some variation of the idea of hell, or
fairyland, or some mixture of the two, and so, early on, there was a
kind of short lived cult that centered on the idea that they were all
damned in some way, this being the reason they were in such an alien universe.

Leading
this, and bringing it to a focus, were a group of terribly
frightened medieval-era European people, who managed to form a
faction that united most of the less technological groups together.
It took quite some time for the precious few high technology groups
to become dominant over everyone.

These
European groups created the focus on 'Alchemists' and 'Witches', on
interpreting antilinovective drives as 'brooms', and so forth. These
influences remained even into the height of technological Myrmil, and
thus on to the time of the current story.

One
of the most vocal of the 'damnation cult' groups were various
Catholic and Jewish peoples, united in terror, who also brought with
them a fixation on the number seven. From Kabbalah and from Catholic
mysticism as well, a madness sprung that was not unlike the aborignal
American 'Ghost Dancers' who believed that by dancing they could
magic back the original indian population and culture. The number
seven, and ways of making use of it, were seen as a means to regain
the grace of god, and thus be saved from the hell that they saw
Tryslmaistan as.

The
legacy of this was a base seven numerical system, one of many
concessions the high tech groups had to make to unify these lost
humans for the sake of mutual survival.

How
do Gryrnese marriage ceremonies go? Are
there differences between a same-sex wedding and a het one? -ObakeTenshi

Weddings
are no different whether the couple is heterosexual or homosexual.
Gryrnese culture, lacking any remaining connections to terrestrial
bigotries or taboos, is a society, where -except for the Ark
migrations- sexual preferance simply is not an issue.

The
profoundness of this is not to be underestimated. In Gryrnese
culture, being gay is not any kind of issue at all. No parent cares
at all, no one blinks if someone turns out to be gay, bi or straight,
and there is no bigotry or seperation of any kind under law or
religion. It truly is an alien society.

There
is only one case where being gay or straight matters: Queer folks
are excluded, by the Pact of Myrmil, from transport on the Arks.
There is an exception for people who are bisexual in some cases, but
all of the children on the Arks are screened for homosexual
tendencies, and eliminated if any are found.

The
reason for this is not just reproduction by itself. Gay people can
and do have children, and under such a dire situation as the end of
the world, one can expect even a strongly gay person to 'do their
duty' and have children to propigate the species.

No,
the real reason the Pact demands only Heterosexual people on the
Arks is to encourage massive breeding. All the Ark children and crew
are expected to follow an exhausting and highly controlled breeding
program, one that turns any joy in sex to a mechanical duty, and
because it is all enough to turn off even a hetero person eventually,
they are hedging their bets with all heterosexual people.

The
children and the crew will be expected to have as many babies as
possible, for as long as they live, with rigidly assigned partners
only, and with no ability to form any sort of family or bond. It
isn't a happy situation.

But
enough about such matters, you ask about marriage.

There
are two main variations on marrage in Gryrnese culture, the Wiccan
ceremony and the Alchemist ceremony. Both flavors come in many cost
forms, depending on available wealth, and the degree of fuss one
wants to have.

The
ultimate Gryrnese Wiccan wedding, which Millian and Yasui had, would
be held at a sacred temple or other ritualistically important
location, and involves much pagentry and pomp. Gryrnese Wicca is
rather unlike earthly paganism, and is in many ways often like a
blend of Catholicism, Judaeism and Shinto, all wrapped up in a Wiccan
package. It is an amalgum of half-remembered bits and melted-together
elements from the First People and their lost, earthly beliefs.

Gryrnese
Wiccans are not as 'Nature' oriented, for instance, because there is
a heck of a lot less 'Nature', and life itself is a constant struggle
in an alien realm. So buildings are preferred to open air, and the
trappings are banners and veils, finery and music, and a long
procession. A Wiccan Priest or Priestess officiates, and the
ceremony, after the long procession, which essentially has the couple
walk along what is (hopefully) a long line of relatives and friends,
ceremonially stopping and introducing themselves as a couple to each
person, and accepting gifts (which are carried by a number of
helpers, the 'Henchweds' who haul the gifts and display them as the
procession moves along), then begins.

The
Wiccan ceremony takes place under a specially constructed veiled
canopy of sorts, which is in the shape of an elaborate, almost 'Bucky
Fuller' styled, lacy tetrahedron. After prayers to the Goddess, a
recital of the lineage of the couple (Gryrnese are very big on
genetic history, on geneology, something strongly encouraged by the
Council, for reasons that become vital at Ark migrations), the couple
recite special prayers to each other. By this, I mean that they
literally pray to each other as though their partner was a deity.
Then, after all of this, the couple have their left hands tied
together with seven cords, one blue, one red, one green and the
remaining four white. Bound together thus, their hands clasped
together and wrapped with thick woven cords, a small triangular table
is placed beneath their bound hands.

On
this table is placed a small, hollow, blown crystal (effectively
glass) orb, around which is engraved words of despair and rejection,
jealousy and anger. The couple, together, as one, smash the fragile
orb with a blow from their heavily bound hands, usually with a small
hop...simply because it is less awkward than trying to flex a bound grip.

If
the couple smashes the orb with the first try, this is said to be
lucky, and to be a blessing, which will prevent all bad things from
happening in the future to the couple. Of course, if they are still
struggling after three tries, the Priest or Priestess comes in with a
rather oversize hammer-like ritual device which has the Gryrnese
words for hope and love enscribed on it, and smashes the crap out of
the orb in a big flourish, thus conquering all the bad stuff through
the 'divine love of the Goddess'.

The
couple are unbound, kiss, and are pronounced married.

Much
food is eaten and music played. There is a traditional circle dance.

The
ultimate Alchemist wedding is rather different. It is, in some
respects, almost like a military affair. Decorations are in deep
colors, and are of geometric shapes reminicient of order, logic and
mechanics. People wear dress uniforms, not unlike far more elaborate
versions of the uniforms of the Arkship crews. After what amounts to
a military inspection made by the couple of the guests, the guests
then form a circle around the couple. If there are enough guests, two
or more circles are formed, one within the other, always the couple
in the center.

The
couple then each, in turn, give their arguments as to why they
belong together. They may list their geneologies, reasons why they
need each other, reasons why it would just be wrong to not be
together. Facing them is a person playing the role of a traditional
character, the Great Constructor, who acts as a mock judge. He may
cross-examine statements, make rude obervations, and seem to be bent
on preventing the union. The Alchemist couple make a show of fighting
him with logic and reason, until eventually they have nothing more to
say. At this point the Great Constructor announces that without a
valid argument, the marriage cannot be allowed, for marriage is the
foundation of the house that is society, and no house may stand
without a proper foundation, and much else besides. At this point the
couple will stand up against the Constructor and finally proclaim
that beyond all reason, all logic, all meaning, they just plain love
each other. It is the first time love is mentioned at all in the
ceremony, and for that reason comes across very powerfully.

The
Constructor suddenly changes his attitude, as if converted by the
outburst of emotion, and acknoledges that behind any purpose, there
must first be the desire of the heart to make it happen, and that the
heart is the most fundamental reason of all, and the one that cannot
be denied.

Much
hoopla then breaks out, all the autere trappings up to this point
are dropped, and the whole crowd basically whoops it up and goes
nuts. There is food and dancing and music and the Gryrnese equivalent
of drinks, and it is a big fancy party, the very opposite of how it began.

Lastly,
of course, are very simple, and fairly neutral, civil ceremonies.

That
is how marriage is handled in Gryrnese culture.

What
species of ants do the Gryrnese
have anyway? -Sheseala

The
kind of ants the Gryrnese have are [i]Oecophylla smaragdina[/i], the
Austalian Green Ant, sometimes called the 'Citrus Ant'. The ant
secretes a citrus-like chemical from its abdomen, and has been used
in many ways on earth: Aboriginal women would use the secretion on
their nipples in order to flavor them, and to treat respiratory
illnesses in their nursing children, and the ants, when crushed, put
in water, and strained, create a tangy, citrus-like beverage. This
can be sweetened with honey.

The
Green Ant is a weaver ant which builds a nest in bushes or shrubs.
On Gryrnu...on all the Gryrnus.....this ant has had to adapt, and
over the eons has changed its behavior radically to live in Plum
trees, building nests from Plum leaves. The ants will guard and
protect their plum tree from attack, and have been known to take out
smaller crystalline creatures that invade human lands...the acids the
ant secretes can dissolve crystal hulls, even if the jaws of the ants
are unable to bit through a crystal animal.

The
ants can survive on plum trees because they get needed Vlaxilin from
the fruit and sap of the tree, and the trees get Vlax from the soil,
which may have Vlax added by humans, or may be enriched by the
passing of crawling Vlaxifurm ribbons, making their way from the sea
to the open desert.

Gryrnese
Green ants are also cultivated in chambers by the Gryrnese, and
antkeeping is as advanced as beekeeping on Gryrnu.

Why
is the Stormfall such a problem? -Tony Lime

Tryslmaistan
space is not infinite, in fact, it is very finite. That, in a
nutshell is why the Stormfall is so dangerous...eventually everyone
will have no place to run to anymore, and only one Worldplate will be left.

When
the Stormfall
started, it formed a column, a constant wraparound cylinder of debris
that began to grow. At the halfway point of the entire universe, the
Stormfall wall will be dimensionally 'flat', and past the halfway
point, will become a shrinking circular curtain, closing in on a
center point. (This has to do with the way hyperdimensional
structures, such as universes, work. There are diagrams in some of
the Alternate Universe specials that explain this visually)

Now,
there could be StormDivers, living in the falling rubble, indeed
there almost certainly is (!), but when that last Worldplate falls,
the storm, closing in upon itself, will grind itself out, smash
itself against itself, and finally stop, leaving nothing but dust.
This dust would include, of course, the StormDivers falling with the
rubble. They are ultimately doomed.

The
entire volume of the Tryslmaistan universe is very small compared to
our enourmous Mundis universe. Compared to Mundis, All of
Tryslmaistan could fit inside a box that stretched from our sun to
just past Alpha Centauri, the closest starsystem to earth...about 4.5
light years away, just over a parsec.

Tryslmaistan
is roughly 3.2 light years 'wide' (in a hyperspace sense!) by 0.03
light years 'tall'....wide and flat.....using the Mundis speed of
light as a yardstick. Of course this cosmic space wraps on all sides
to meet itself, which is why you can fall all the way around the
universe, or, if you had a ship powerful enough, fly all the way
around in any direction. The trip would be much longer sideways than
up and down before the wrap.

Tryslmaistan
is a 'pocket' class universe, very, very small compared to our own.
But then our universe is very, very empty, and Tryslmaistan is
literally jam-packed with matter...every part is filled with matter,
be that matter air, or Worldplates. There is no empty vacuum in Tryslmaistan.

Now,
an entire universe just under a parsec wide, and handfull of
Astronomical Units tall may seem incredibly dinky, and it is, but
that is also one hell of a huge place in human terms, which is why
300,000 years of running away can occur before nearing the mid-point.
The Humans could happily continue running away for another 100,000
years before the effects of Charge imbalance caused by Worldplates
being destroyed got so bad that no one could survive being outside
the ship (like Texto, only much, much worse...), and if they made
adjustments to never leave the ship, they could run all the way to
the last Worldplate, another 200,000 years beyond that. But by that
time, even standing on that last worldplate would be death, because
there would be nothing but massive Charge, and a surrounding curtain
of death, closing in. Game Over.

This
is what Chou knows, and she is so concerned with taking action in
her lifetime because she realizes that Mankind has blithely been
running away for 300,000 years and has not changed how it does
things. What happened to Texto is an example of that...it could have
been avoided simply by putting the controls inside the Ark. 300,000
years ago, Charge bleed from the Storm was not an issue, so it did
not matter. But the Humans have clearly borrowed more than bits of
language and culture from the native Jellese...they have clearly been
affected by the entire Steady-State nature of the universe itself, as
well...like the Jellese, they now resist all change. Chou sees this
too, and it is simple now to realize that the Humans are very likely
to just run to extinction, blindly.

Chou
is the only person in 300,000 years to truly grasp the problem and
defininately the only person to consider it an issue. She has
doubtless calculated that when she dies, if nothing changes, there
will almost certainly never be another person who will bother to make
a difference. So, Chou is thinking 300,000 years ahead, because in
all of time, she is the only one likely to. Something has to be done
by somebody, sometime, and that time probably has to be now, if it
ever is going to occur.

Why
was Wai-Wai so
hated by Neve?

While
Queer folk are just a normal part of Gryrnese society, both lesbians
and gay men having weddings, and living normal lives, things are not
so good for transsexuals and the transgendered. Being Genderqueer is
a big taboo in Gryrnese society.

Even
with that said, it has been noted in other posts that all of the Ark
Children were selected for being straight, among other qualities, in
an age old, futile effort to eliminate Queer folks, and to increase
breeding activity. The reason being that the people who wrote the
Books Of Myrmil must have felt that heterosexual people would do
their job of breeding like cattle with more...gusto...than homosexual people.

I
suppose there is a slim argument there...it is easier for males to
'get it up' for someone they are attracted to...but it is a very weak
argument even so. It must be a very faint carry-over from Earth, just
as there are bits of language and myths of animals like foxes
and butterflies.

Genderqueer
Humans are to be
killed on discovery in traditional Gryrnese society. Transsexual and
transgendered people are denounced in the Book Of Myrmil, and are to
be eliminated. No one cares
about the Jellese, which is why no fuss was made about KayWai. The
Jellese are considered subhuman.

The
reason for this edict is lost to time, and no one in the story knows
exactly why. All they have is a word, and a basic commandment to
follow concerning people like me.

But
I know the history behind the why of it, and here it is....

The
'Faeries' were not the only rebellion that has ever occured in the
history of the Gryrnese, and one, long, long, long ago was led by a transsexual.

Her
chosen name was Lylthia Campaspe, and she was a Male-To Female in a
world without surgery, without hormone therapy, without any recourse.
This was still a time, however, when there were memories that yet
remained of the real lost Myrmil, and all of the technology that it
had. Yalla wanted that technology back, for obvious reasons, and
formed a social revolution among the rather unhappy people of the
time to try to change the direction of civilization from becoming
what we see it is today in the story. She wanted a society devoted to
reclaiming lost technology and science, instead of a totally
controlled, totalitarian society designed to keep people dumb, and
working hard...so that a very few might escape to begin again.

In
short, she wanted what Chou wants now, only she was too early, and
lacked Chou's incredible mental abilities. She failed, spectacularly,
and a lot of people had to be killed to force conformity once again.
Eventually her name became the Talcryl word for 'evil', Lylth. It is
also the word for anyone shown to have gender issues...they are
'Lylthkel', or spawn of Lylth, spawn of evil.

If
I had done strip
549
in Talcryl, Neve would actually have said "Ando te YaStuu
Lylthkel te!" or " [This Human] [wretched/
unconforming/ disruptive] [spawn of evil/ genderqueer/ sick/
perverted] !". What is there is close enough.

If
I were to live on Myrmil, I, like all the other genderqueer folk,
would just have to suffer, hide, or try to pass anyway, while hiding
in fear. Rather like much of the third world today, actually.

Wai-Wai
Ngo can be understood to be well worth being a covert ops
person...he managed to keep the secret of his physical sex all this
time in a hiddeously totalitarian society. He could not have managed
to do this by always being nice. Indeed, he has done more than a few
extreme things in his past to survive. Desperation makes monsters of
us all.

Even
so, Wai-Wai wants to be a good man. I think most readers can see
that...it's just that...Gryrnese society is very, very harsh, and
thus people, even good people, may be put into positions where
extreme behavior may be the best option sometimes.

For
those that don't know the terms, half of all transsexuals are
Female-To-Male. Born with female organs, the brain, the person
inside, is male. They are men, only they have female bodies.
It is just as miserable as the other direction of being transsexual.

Transsexual
men (because they are men, inside, and also are transsexuals)
do not get even a tenth of the press or the fuss that transsexual
women (like me) get...mainly because we live in a patriarchal
culture, where male privilage is a big deal. In patriarchy, it is a
horror and a terrible evil that anyone would ever give up the crown
of being physically male for something as wretched as being female.
Thus the fuss and the attention of the media.

However,
this also means that MTF types also get a lot of help, too.
Double-edged sword and all that. FTM types kind of get ignored a lot.
Which can be good...and can be bad, too.

Given
the almost total control that the Gryrnese
government exerts, I suspect that any libraries, or the publishing
and distribution ofliterature
of any kind, are firmly hedged in with rules and regulations. For
instance, not allowing patrons to take books out; You have to read
them then and there. Alchemists cannot enter a Wiccan library, and
vice versa. And records are kept of the books you select or purchase,
in order to spot any potential troublemakers.
How Close did I get? -Rev.
Cardboard Box

Bingo.
Books are controlled...which is why Lupiko's mother was in such
trouble for owning books that she was not legally allowed to own.

In
Gryrnese culture, books are classed by content.

Childen's
books, once approved, can be owned by anyone.

Books
on home life are also allowed universally: cooking, cleaning, the
best way to take care of children, nutrition, that sort of thing.

Books
about plays and music are allowed, once approved. All books have to
be approved by the government.

Books
about complex facts, trade and commerce...Wiccan books and Alchemist
books are classed according to content, from those open to any member
of a Faction (but not the other Faction!) to those so secret that
only the Council can see them (The real Books Of Myrmil).

You
can buy books in stores, those books that are allowed, but there are
no stores devoted only to books, just as there are no libraries, save
the collection that someone might put together in their home. Having
too many books is...discouraged.

So,
a happy children's book, a cookbook, or a book on crystal beasts
could be in anyones home. A book on the proper use of metalworking
tools would only be seen in the home of an Alchemist, and a book on
the tea tree would sit on a shelf in a locked room in the back of a
government building, and only a person with credentials could ever
see it.

In
this strip, uni512,
we see Texto accidentally dropping a load of Millian's wash...

I
am assuming that this strip was set, timeline-wise, before the New
Gryrnese had 'blazed' a path to the fresh water Inner Sea...

I
am curious to know which Crystal/White Life 'plant' produces a fluid
that not only acts as a oil/sweat/dust/dirt/blood detergent, but also
evaporates without leaving a residue behind...

(It's
obvious, at the point in this strip, that the New Gryrnese were
living off of Arkship stores, and water was too precious a thing to
be used on something as wasteful as washing clothes.)

Is
the "crystalplant" that Ylla is referring to be found in
the Life
On The Land
alternate strip?

The
Obelesfern looks like a good candidate, but so does the StackStance 'plant'...

The
whole conversation about 'Crystal laundry fluid' has brought up
another "touchy" subject...

Once
the Inner Sea was reached by the New Gryrnese, composting was
started to help build soil, to cover over the crystal sand, and give
a 'foothold' for the Green Life... But there is a rather mundane
question... Uumn... How do I put this delicately...>

How
does a New Gryrnese wipe their ass? -Waen Pahworzu

Wiping
your ass, Gryrnese style!

The
Obelesfern is a useful and interesting crystal plant. As has been
mentioned before, crystal matter is not rigidly hard, like the rock
crystal of earth...this is not stone we are dealing with, even in the
rocks that make up the Worldplate. Everything is some degree of being
plastic, or even rubbery.

The
Obelesfern is very soft, even for crystal life, which is why it was
originally named a 'fern' rather than, say, a spike or something.
'Fern' has a mythological conotation of softness to the Gryrnese.

The
fluid inside the Obelesfern is a runny goo that has chemical
components that are identical to the biosolvents that the Crystal
Basilisk uses to extrude, and to reabsorb, the spines it uses for
locomotion. These same solvents are useful, to a degree, for cleaning
clothing, which is why Texto was using crystalplant
fluid...Obelesfern specifically. The Obelesfern is hollow, soft, and
filled with solvent-laden fluid. The fluid is a bit thick, like a
thin syrup, or perhaps hand lotion, but it can work, if there is no
water. It is a decent act of emergency or extreme situation survival
knowledge to be able to use.

But
the most common use for the Obelesfern is for asswipe. By cutting
the exterior hull into strips, a soft, clean, and lotion-covered
rubbery material results. This can be used to clean the body,
including removing the mess of defecation and urination. The solvents
are volatile, and evaporate, leaving only a trace of crystorganic
residue. Sometimes strips of Obelesfern are used as bandages, too.

The
material is not absorbant, of course, but it is workable for such
uses. The solvent has no effect on terrestrial organic matter, but it
is fluid, and it can flush out dirt, dissolve crystal sand, and
leaves a more or less clean odor...an almost plastic like odor, but,
still, better than, say, human schmutz.

Gryrnese
will keep a jar of Obelesfern strips near where they would need
them. There is an industry based around growing plots of the crystal
plant, harvesting and slicing it, and making it available.

However,
the really poor, like Lupiko and Chou back at the beginning of our
story, simply went out behind their house and used leaves from the
cone trees. Cone trees do not have needles, like pine, but rather,
flat, three-lobed leaves...as we have seen in some sections.

There
is one other, strange use, for the fluid of the Obelesfern...because
it acts as a solvent for crystal matter, children and some adults can
use it in combination with local crystalline rock as a kind of 'glue'
to make hobbies and crafts, simple toys, and such works.

How
did generations of living in the
Tryslmaistan universe effect the human reproductive system? More
specifically, do women still go through the periodic bother that is
menstruation and if so, how is it explained and dealt with? I must
imagine that things like blood must be disposed of carefully, so as
not to attract creatures that crave the salts and other minerals that
red life is so full of. -Jade Cat

Nobody
has asked this one before!

Unfortunately,
menstruation is still suffered through in the Tryslmaistan cosmos as
it is on earth. Humans have really not changed all that much by being
there, save for an extended lifespan, and with it, a much later
puberty, and a few other small details. The reason for the alteration
in lifespan is because of the anentropic principle of Tryslmaistan,
which causes a constant, low-level repair of oxidative damage in
human cells, combined with a lower metabolic rate being required overall.

The
only other change of any real note is that human pigment is
gradually being lost, because of the non-damaging nature of lumonic
light, but this process is insanely slow. Eventually, one might
expect the Tryslmaistan humans to be utterly colorless, pasty and
sickly pale, but such a state would not occur for at least another
300,000 years. Which is why we still have humans with light brown
skins. It is possible, however, that the current situation of human
pigment we have seen is the final stage, a balance point. This is
suggested by the extra kick of energy that anentropy provides living
things...it is possible that the loss of biological energy that
pigment production demands (any biological activity has a cost) is
balanced by electanic benefit. If so, no more pigment will ever be lost.

Lastly,
it would seem that humans are somewhat more passive in Tryslmaistan,
having been bred for such over a third of a million years.

Beyond
these small differences, humans are the same there as they are here.
And that means that yes, menstruation occurs, along with cramps for
some, and the need for pads. The Gryrnese have not developed tampons.

Mentrual
pads are made from cloth (the manufacture of cloth has been
referenced elsewhere), and are used over and over. The pads, when
full, are cleaned out in a bucket or pail, and the bloody water is
added to compost, applied on crops directly, or used by Alchemists,
who can extract minerals by precipitative reaction. Very often, the
pads have been collected for a week or more before being cleaned.

Blood,
and other bodily excretions, does not decay in the same way as on
earth, because bacteria are few, and cannot live without Vlax. As the
Vlaxilin is used up in the blood by any skin-based microorganisms,
the bacteria die, ending decomposition. So old mentrual pads can be
stacked to dry and they will not have 'dead blood odor'. Humans also
lack strong body odors in general for this reason.

Now,
to our culture, all of this may seem strange, but it is to be
remembered that the Gryrnese lack many of the issues we possess,
because their way of life is shaped by their needs and situation.
Blood is an organic matter, and it is high in minerals, and such
things are terribly useful in their cosmos. Sewage is another
resource that is commonly collected, too.

Cramps
are treated with mild infusions of Deifica and tea...not enough to
cause massive hallucinations, or complete anesthesia, of course, but
rather just for light pain relief. Much in the same way that
cannibis, in our own world, and especially in America, was used
commonly for 200 years, until it was outlawed in the 50's under
political pressure from William Randolph (Citizen Kane) Hurst, in
order to destroy hemp based paper and so benefit his own personal
investment in wood-based paper.

The
Wiccans have a few little rituals associated with menstruation, for
the Alchemists it is just a boring biological function of no note.

There
is one particulately Gryrnese use for menstruation, however...the
senses of native life can sometimes follow the airborn scent of
metals in blood, and so menstruating female fighters, seeking a
prowling crystal beast at the borders of the Human lands, may use
their own menstrual blood as a kind of
bait, in various ways, to lure the beast they need to terminate. This
gives them an advantage over male fighters, and this advantage is
sometimes grumbled about by some males, in seedy fighter bars, over
mugs of tant-laced beverages.